Native gRPC Protocol Support

gRPC Health Check Monitoring

Most monitoring tools can't speak gRPC. Uptimy uses native protocol support to health check your gRPC services. No HTTP gateway required.

03:07 · a gRPC service went NOT_SERVING behind a healthy load balancer.
payments.v1
grpc.health.v1 · Check
Operational
  1. 03:06:00SERVING · 12 ms

03:07 · the problem

Why gRPC Services Need Specialized Monitoring

gRPC uses HTTP/2 and Protocol Buffers. Standard HTTP monitoring tools can't understand the protocol. You end up adding an HTTP gateway just for health checks, introducing another failure point.

Native Protocol

Speak gRPC directly, no HTTP proxy needed.

Method Validation

Call specific RPCs and validate responses.

mTLS Support

Client certificates for secure service mesh.

Health Protocol

Native support for grpc.health.v1.Health.

03:08 · where it breaks

gRPC Failures HTTP Can't Catch

gRPC services fail in ways that HTTP monitoring completely misses:

  • ✗Proto schema mismatch where client and server disagree on message format
  • ✗Streaming failures where connection opens but stream immediately errors
  • ✗Deadline exceeded because service is too slow for its configured timeout
  • ✗Auth failures where metadata/credentials rejected by interceptor

07:30 · how Uptimy fixes it

How Uptimy Monitors gRPC

Uptimy connects to your gRPC services using native protocol support:

Health Check Protocol

Automatic support for grpc.health.v1.

Custom RPC Calls

Call any unary method with custom request data.

Server Reflection

Auto-discover methods without uploading protos.

Response Validation

Check response fields match expected values.

10:00 · set it up

Getting Started

Set up gRPC monitoring in the dashboard:

  1. 1

    Create a gRPC Monitor

    Select gRPC as your monitor type and enter your service host and port.

  2. 2

    Choose Your Method

    Use the standard grpc.health.v1.Health/Check or specify any unary RPC method to call.

  3. 3

    Configure TLS and Auth

    Enable TLS for secure connections. Add metadata headers for authentication if needed.

  4. 4

    Set Response Expectations

    Define which gRPC status codes indicate success and validate specific response fields.

17:00 · questions

Frequently Asked Questions

Uptimy uses native gRPC protocol support to connect to your services. We support both secure (TLS) and insecure connections, with optional mTLS for services that require client certificates.

It helps but isn't required. If your service implements the standard gRPC Health Checking Protocol, we use it. Otherwise, you can specify any unary RPC method to call as a health check.

Yes. For streaming RPCs, Uptimy can verify the stream opens successfully and optionally validate the first message received. This catches connection and auth issues.

For services with server reflection enabled, Uptimy discovers methods automatically. Otherwise, you can upload your .proto files or provide them as a URL.

Uptimy monitors for all gRPC status codes. By default, anything other than OK is a failure, but you can configure expected status codes for specific health check scenarios.

20:00 · keep exploring

Related Topics

23:00 · goodnight

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