CMS Health Checks

Project Description

The CMS Health Project is focused on establishing a standardized approach for content management systems and related services to communicate their health status. This initiative facilitates seamless integration with monitoring tools, load balancers, and other infrastructure components, ensuring a comprehensive assessment of system health across various platforms.

Traditional uptime monitoring is insufficient for managing modern, complex digital infrastructures. Basic availability checks indicate whether a site is reachable, but they do not provide insights into crucial aspects such as software updates, user management, order processing, and other key health metrics. Without detailed monitoring, service disruptions may go unnoticed, leading to potential operational and business risks.

To address these challenges, the CMS Health Project aims to define a standardized health check format applicable across multiple open-source CMS platforms, including Drupal, TYPO3, Joomla!, and WordPress. This common format allows website operators, hosting providers, and developers to obtain comprehensive health data, enabling them to maintain and optimize their services more effectively. By advancing this initiative, the CMS Health Project contributes to a more robust and transparent approach to monitoring and maintaining CMS platforms. Establishing a widely accepted standard for health checks will facilitate better infrastructure management and service availability across the open-source ecosystem.

During the previous hackathon, substantial progress was made with the creation of an RFC document, and reference implementations, e.g. for TYPO3 and WordPress. Additionally, a repository with standardized interfaces was developed, along with an initial version of a monitoring tool designed to interpret and display health data. A GitHub page was also launched, providing centralized access to repositories and relevant project information.

Target Audience

• Developers: Those working on CMS core functionality, extensions, and integrations.
• System Administrators: Responsible for maintaining and optimizing CMS-based infrastructures.
• Hosting Providers: Seeking to improve monitoring capabilities and service reliability.
• CMS Contributors: Open-source developers and maintainers focused on improving platform health.
• Agencies: Managing multiple websites and requiring standardized monitoring solutions.
• Security Professionals: Interested in privacy-friendly and secure health monitoring practices.

Hackathon Goals

Building upon these achievements, this year’s hackathon will focus on several key areas:

• Review and Refinement of the RFC: Assessing industry developments and adjusting the standard accordingly.
• Repository Evaluation: Analyzing the state of existing repositories to identify areas for improvement and further development.
• Monitoring Tool Enhancements: Improving data visualization, security, and integration with various CMS platforms.
• Expanding Reference Implementations: Developing health check integrations for additional CMS platforms beyond TYPO3 and WordPress.
• Community Outreach and Adoption: Increasing awareness and collaboration within the open-source community to drive the adoption of standardized health monitoring practices.
• Collaboration Strengthening: Encouraging cross-CMS cooperation to ensure a unified and effective monitoring solution. The status of the repositories will be analyzed to identify optimizations and further developments, particularly in enhancing the monitoring tool, expanding reference implementations to additional CMS platforms, and increasing outreach efforts within the open-source community. Strengthening collaboration among CMS developers and contributors remains a fundamental goal, ensuring a standardized approach to health monitoring that fosters reliability and transparency across various platforms.