Setting up Uptime Kuma on a VPS to monitor your projects

What you'll need

• A VPS on Ubuntu 22.04/24.04 with a dedicated IPv4.
• A subdomain pointing at it (e.g. status.example.com) if you want HTTPS.
• Docker installed.

Step 1: Install Docker

curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sh
ufw allow 22/tcp
ufw allow 80/tcp
ufw allow 443/tcp
ufw enable

Step 2: Run Uptime Kuma with a persistent volume

Kuma stores its database in /app/data. Mount a named volume so your monitors and history survive container restarts and updates. Bind it to localhost only; Caddy will expose it.

docker volume create uptime-kuma
docker run -d --restart=unless-stopped \
  -p 127.0.0.1:3001:3001 \
  -v uptime-kuma:/app/data \
  --name uptime-kuma \
  louislam/uptime-kuma:1

Step 3: Put Caddy in front for HTTPS

Install Caddy from its official repo and write a one-block config that proxies your subdomain to Kuma. Caddy gets the certificate automatically.

apt install -y debian-keyring debian-archive-keyring apt-transport-https curl
curl -1sLf 'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/caddy/stable/gpg.key' | gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/caddy-stable-archive-keyring.gpg
curl -1sLf 'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/caddy/stable/debian.deb.txt' | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/caddy-stable.list
apt update && apt install -y caddy

status.example.com {
    reverse_proxy 127.0.0.1:3001
}

systemctl reload caddy

Step 4: Create the admin account and first monitor

1. Open https://status.example.com and set an admin username and password.
2. Click Add New Monitor.
3. Choose monitor type HTTP(s), paste a URL to watch, and set the heartbeat interval (60 seconds is a sensible default).
4. Save. The dashboard starts charting uptime and response time immediately.

Kuma can also monitor a raw TCP port (great for databases or SSH), a ping, a DNS record, or a Docker container, not just HTTP.

Step 5: Wire up Telegram alerts

Create a bot with @BotFather to get a token, then find your chat ID. The quickest way: message your new bot, then call getUpdates and read the chat id from the response.

curl https://api.telegram.org/botYOUR_TOKEN/getUpdates

1. In Kuma go to Settings, then Notifications, then Setup Notification.
2. Pick Telegram, paste the bot token and your chat ID, and test it.
3. Attach the notification to each monitor (or set it as default for all).

Keep it running

• Update: docker pull louislam/uptime-kuma:1 then recreate the container with the same volume.
• Back up the volume the same way as any Docker volume (tar the contents of /app/data).
• Publish a public status page from inside Kuma if you want users to self-serve incident status.

Uptime Kuma barely registers on a small box, so a dedicated monitoring VPS costs only a few dollars a month, billed hourly. Spin one up in about 60 seconds in a different region from your apps, and you have an independent watchdog you can destroy the moment you no longer need it.