Pi Network Monitor

Experiment - Raspberry Pi Network Monitoring Node

Scenario

This experiment aims to configure a Raspberry Pi 4 as a basic network-monitoring node. The node will monitor the availability and response times of the home router, internet connection, DNS service, Raspberry Pi SSH service, and selected devices on the local network using Uptime Kuma.

Learning goals

• Practise Linux system and network administration.
• Identify interfaces, addresses, routes, gateways, and DNS services.
• Deploy a containerised monitoring application.
• Establish baseline latency and availability measurements over Wi-Fi.
• Recognise the limitations of monitoring from a normal wireless client.

Lab environment

Item	Details
Device	Raspberry Pi 4
Operating system	Ubuntu LTS - exact version to be confirmed
Architecture	Expected aarch64 / Arm64
Connection	Wi-Fi
Monitoring application	Uptime Kuma 2
Container platform	Docker
Future change	Move the node to Ethernet

Network details

Complete these fields during the lab:

Setting	Recorded value
Hostname
Wi-Fi interface
Raspberry Pi IPv4 address
Subnet
Default gateway
DNS server
Uptime Kuma address	http://PI_ADDRESS:3001

Process

1. Confirm the system

cat /etc/os-release
uname -m
hostnamectl

2. Record the network configuration

ip address
ip route
resolvectl status

3. Test connectivity

Replace ROUTER_IP with the default gateway recorded above.

ping -c 4 ROUTER_IP
ping -c 4 1.1.1.1
getent hosts cloudflare.com

4. Install diagnostic tools

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y nmap traceroute mtr-tiny iperf3 vnstat tcpdump

Confirm the tools:

nmap --version
mtr --version
iperf3 --version
vnstat --version
tcpdump --version

5. Install and test Docker

sudo apt install -y docker.io docker-compose-v2
sudo systemctl enable --now docker
sudo systemctl status docker --no-pager
sudo docker run --rm hello-world

Note

The commands use Ubuntu’s packaged Docker release to keep this first experiment straightforward. A later lab can compare it with Docker’s upstream repository installation.

6. Deploy Uptime Kuma

sudo docker volume create uptime-kuma
sudo docker run -d \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  -p 3001:3001 \
  -v uptime-kuma:/app/data \
  --name uptime-kuma \
  louislam/uptime-kuma:2

Verify the deployment:

sudo docker ps
sudo docker logs --tail 30 uptime-kuma

Open the dashboard from another device:

http://RASPBERRY_PI_IP:3001

7. Configure the monitors

Use a 60-second interval for the initial experiment.

Monitor	Type	Example target	Purpose
Home Router	Ping	Default gateway	Local network availability
Internet Connection	Ping	1.1.1.1	Internet access independent of DNS
DNS Resolution	DNS	cloudflare.com	Name-resolution availability
External Website	HTTPS	Selected website	End-to-end web connectivity
Raspberry Pi SSH	TCP	Pi address, port 22	Remote administration availability
Local Server	Ping	Server address	Local device availability

Uptime Kuma Output