Community Probes: Run Your Own PulseWatch Ping Node

We are adding a feature that lets you add your own probe to PulseWatch. Instead of only checking from our servers, you will be able to run a small probe on your own machine and have it participate in PulseWatch checks.

The goal is simple: more locations, more paths, more truth. A probe in your network sees what our servers cannot, and once approved it can be chosen for multi-region checks.

What a probe does

A probe runs alongside the PulseWatch ping servers and performs checks from wherever it is hosted. You decide how much capacity you want to share: a slice of your bandwidth and a slice of your compute, based on your own specs. You can contribute a set percentage of PulseWatch pings, throttled so it never takes priority over your own work.

On our side, your probe becomes one more vantage point. When someone sets up a multi-region check, they will be able to choose approved probes in addition to our own regions, so a monitor can be verified from several places at once.

You do not need approval just to run a probe for yourself. A probe can be used without approval on your own account: its results stay on your own checks. Approval is only required to be listed as a probe for everyone, so other PulseWatch users can choose your probe for multi-region checks.

Approval first

Approval is only needed to join the shared network of probes that everyone can use. A probe running on your own account does not need approval: it only feeds your own checks. When you want your probe to be listed for all PulseWatch users, we review the hardware profile, the hosting, the expected uptime and the contributed share before turning it on, so that nobody's check results depend on a node that cannot stay online.

Probes are self-hosted: PulseWatch does not run probe workers for you. You host the worker on your own machine (or any host you control), and PulseWatch only coordinates the checks and stores the results.

Once approved, your probe appears as an option for multi-region checks. It can be picked by users who want coverage from your region or your network path, and you keep control over how much traffic you actually want to serve.

Run a probe yourself

The worker ships as a Docker image, so you do not need a Node toolchain on the machine that runs it.

cd worker
bun install
PULSEWATCH_URL=http://localhost:10000 REGION=local bun src/probe.ts

docker run -d --restart always \
  -e PULSEWATCH_URL=https://pulsewatch.pignatiello.online \
  -e REGION=eu \
  ghcr.io/optomake-srl/pulsewatch-probe:latest

The probe logs a pairing URL and code. Visit it while signed in and approve it; the probe then starts reporting. PROBE_NODE_ID, INTERVAL_SECONDS, PROVIDER, PROBE_LOCATION, PROBE_NAME and PROBE_STATE_FILE are optional overrides.

Status

Multi-region checks built on community probes have just been released. Sign-ups and approval review are open now, and we will announce when probe-backed checks land in production. If you want to contribute capacity and help shape the feature, this is the time to register.

The PulseWatch Team