Document external probes and count adoption in telemetry

Add availability_probe_targets and availability_probe_agents to the
telemetry ping - counts only, no agent names or addresses - with the
disclosure table updated in both privacy doc copies. Document the
feature in the availability-checks configuration guide and the
unified agent guide, including the ICMP capability caveat for
containerized probes.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
courtmanr@gmail.com 2026-07-27 11:09:29 +01:00
parent a9dad6a29c
commit 3efca89525
6 changed files with 62 additions and 0 deletions

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@ -84,9 +84,34 @@ curl -fsSL http://<pulse-ip>:7655/install.sh | \
- **Host Metrics**: CPU, memory, disk, network I/O, temperatures
- **Docker Monitoring**: Container metrics, health checks, Swarm support (when enabled)
- **Kubernetes Monitoring**: Cluster, node, pod, and deployment health (when enabled)
- **External Probes** (Pro): runs availability checks assigned to this agent from the Pulse server and reports the results back — see below
- **Auto-Update**: Automatically updates when a new version is released
- **Multi-Platform**: Linux, macOS, Windows support
## External Probes (Pro)
With the Pro `external_probe` entitlement, availability checks configured in
Pulse can be assigned to run from a specific agent instead of the Pulse
server (Settings -> Monitoring -> Availability checks -> "Run from"). This is
how you monitor a site from the outside: deploy the agent on a machine
elsewhere — a cloud VM, a Docker host at another location — and assign checks
to it. Alerting still happens on the Pulse server through your normal alert
routes.
There is nothing to configure on the agent itself. Assignments arrive through
the agent's signed remote configuration, the agent runs each check on its
configured interval, and results are delivered with its regular reports.
Results survive temporary connectivity loss to the Pulse server in a bounded
in-memory queue; if the agent cannot deliver for several check intervals the
check shows as indeterminate in Pulse until reports resume. The module
appears as `availability` in the agent's module status when at least one
check is assigned.
Note for ICMP (ping) checks: the probe uses the system `ping` binary. In
containers or hardened service units without `CAP_NET_RAW`, ICMP checks fail;
prefer TCP or HTTP checks there, or grant the capability. See "ICMP probe
privileges" in docs/CONFIGURATION.md.
## Configuration
| Flag | Env Var | Description | Default |