rcourtman
a85bdcdc9a
## Problem PR #2648 stopped the poller's previous-evidence lookup from handing a replaced disk the old disk's serial. The linked host agent's SMART merge runs before that lookup and had the same flaw. Its last-resort match is the device path, and a path names a slot, not a disk. When a disk is swapped before the agent reports again, or after the agent went silent and kept its last rows, the agent's row for the old disk matched the replacement. It filled the old serial or, for SAS, promoted it over the Proxmox SAS address. The registry then keyed the replacement to the old disk's canonical resource and SMART history, and it also took the old disk's temperature and FAILED health. For SAS, the registry's same-path join (`resolveLinkedPhysicalDisk`) did the same at the canonical level even when monitoring kept the rows apart. Proxmox's disk inventory (`PVE::Diskmanage`, checked on a PVE 9 node) writes the literal `unknown` for a serial or WWN udev cannot read. The poller recorded it as a collected serial, so the collection state hid the gap, and the merge's `Serial == ""` fill never let the agent's real serial replace it. ## Change - `mergeHostAgentSMARTIntoDisks` refuses a device-path row whose identity contradicts the Proxmox disk's. The new `diskinventory.HardwareIdentityConflict` defines a contradiction: nothing agrees across serial and WWN, and a field both producers report like for like disagrees. - WWNs count for every disk. - Serials count only where Proxmox's serial is the drive's own, as smartctl's is: a disk typed `nvme`, or one presented with SCSI vendor `ATA` (libata, or a SAS HBA's SCSI-ATA translation) and not typed `usb`/`sas`. Elsewhere the Proxmox serial may be a SAS address or SCSI designator (#1595) or a USB bridge's own serial, so it only counts toward agreement. - Spelling differences are not disagreement: udev's underscores for whitespace, a T10 designator for an ATA drive (`ATA`, the model, then the serial), the agent's NAA field spelling, and udev's 64-bit prefix of an NAA 6 WWN. - The refusal runs after the unique-path check, so a second row on the path keeps the match ambiguous. - The merge's WWN step compares normalized identity (`HardwareIdentityMatch`), so the agent's `5-c50-a1b2c3d4` finds the Proxmox `0x5000c500a1b2c3d4` disk. - `resolveLinkedPhysicalDisk` refuses the SAS same-path fallback when the two WWNs name different disks. - The poller records Proxmox's `unknown` serial/WWN as empty, so the serial reads `missing` and the agent can fill it. Retained evidence carries a previous serial only when it is usable, so a pre-upgrade record cannot restore the placeholder. Identity keys already ignored the placeholder. When the agent now fills a disk's serial, that disk's Proxmox-poll SMART samples move from its WWN or path key to the serial key, where the agent's own samples already go. ## Tests - `TestHostAgentSMARTRowForSwappedOutDiskDoesNotLendItsIdentity` (sata and sas) drives the real poller and registry. Proxmox reports `unknown`, the agent fills the serial, the agent goes silent, and the disk is swapped. On main, the SATA replacement takes the old serial and resource; the SAS replacement keeps its own serial in state, but the registry joins it to the old resource with its temperature and FAILED health. - `TestHostAgentSMARTMergeRefusesPathMatchAcrossContradictingIdentity` has one row per producer rule: SAS/SATA/NVMe replacements refused; same-disk SAS without an agent WWN, a renamed SAS disk in the agent's WWN spelling, udev's serial spelling, a USB enclosure (typed `usb` and typed `ssd`), a T10 designator and an NAA 6 volume merged; and an ambiguous path. - `TestRegistrySASPathJoinRefusesContradictingWWN`, `TestProxmoxUnknownDiskIdentityIsRecordedAsUnreported` and `TestHardwareIdentityConflict` cover the rest. - Negative controls via `go test -overlay`: removing each rule fails only its own case. These cover the guard, the WWN normalization, the transport/vendor rule, compaction, the designator rule, the NAA 6 prefix, the registry guard, the ingest normalization and the usable-serial carry. Against main's `monitor.go` and `registry.go`, the end-to-end, merge and registry tests fail. - `TestMergeHostAgentSMARTIntoDisks_PreservesExistingProxmoxIdentity` merged a row with a different WWN by path alone, which the guard now rightly refuses. Its row is now the same disk in the agent's WWN spelling, with all assertions unchanged. - `internal/monitoring`, `internal/unifiedresources` and `pkg/diskinventory` pass in full. ## Not covered - A replacement with no comparable identity still matches its path: no usable serial or WWN at all, or a SAS/SCSI/USB disk with a WWN on one side only. - The registry's seeded source mapping, reused after a restart by the slot-shaped Proxmox source ID, can still hand a swapped disk the old canonical resource. That's a separate follow-up.
Pulse
Real-time Proxmox, Docker and Kubernetes monitoring that finds what needs attention.
Pulse is a self-hosted monitoring workspace for Proxmox, Docker, Kubernetes, TrueNAS, physical and virtual machines, and early-access VMware vSphere environments. It combines live infrastructure state, history, alerts, recovery visibility, and scheduled health checks without requiring a conventional enterprise monitoring stack.
Why Pulse
- It watches between visits. Alerts and Pulse Patrol find failed backups, capacity pressure, restart loops, unhealthy containers, clock drift, and other problems that dashboards cannot surface when nobody is looking.
- It keeps each platform familiar. Proxmox, Docker, Kubernetes, TrueNAS, vSphere, and machines have dedicated views, backed by one shared resource model for search, alerts, history, and investigation.
- It stays operator-controlled. Credentials are encrypted at rest, API tokens are scoped, agent commands are disabled by default, and governed fixes require the configured policy and approval path.
Platform coverage
| Platform | Coverage |
|---|---|
| Proxmox VE, PBS, and PMG | Nodes, guests, storage, backups, replication, Ceph, mail gateways, and alerts |
| Docker and Podman | Hosts, containers, Compose projects, Swarm services, health, images, and updates |
| Kubernetes | Clusters, nodes, workloads, pods, services, storage, and events through the unified agent |
| TrueNAS SCALE and CORE | Pools, datasets, disks, snapshots, replication tasks, apps, VMs, and alerts |
| Linux, Windows, and macOS machines | Host health, filesystems, networking, temperatures, RAID, and availability through the unified agent |
| VMware vSphere | Early-access inventory, hosts, clusters, VMs, datastores, networks, snapshots, and recovery context; validate against your own vCenter before production use |
Platform pages keep storage and recovery information beside the infrastructure it belongs to. Alerts, Actions, and Patrol remain cross-platform views.
Patrol: monitoring that does rounds
Pulse Patrol runs scheduled checks across the current state and recent history of your infrastructure. Community installations can use a local model or their own AI provider for watch-only analysis. Pulse Pro adds investigation and policy-bound fixes with approval, verification, and an audit trail.
Pulse also includes an interactive Assistant and an MCP adapter for external clients such as Claude Code and OpenCode. Both sit on top of the same scoped inventory, metrics, alert, storage, and governed-action contracts.
Quick start
Choose an exact version from the latest release and keep that version pinned during installation.
Docker
docker run -d \
--name pulse \
-p 7655:7655 \
-v pulse_data:/data \
-e PULSE_DEPLOYMENT_METHOD=docker_run \
--restart unless-stopped \
rcourtman/pulse:vX.Y.Z
Open http://<your-ip>:7655 and follow the bootstrap-token setup. Docker host
monitoring is provided by the unified agent; the Pulse server container does
not need the Docker socket.
Proxmox LXC, Linux, and Kubernetes
The installer is signed. Verify install.sh against the pinned
pulse-installer key before running it:
export PULSE_VERSION=vX.Y.Z
curl -fsSLO "https://github.com/rcourtman/Pulse/releases/download/${PULSE_VERSION}/install.sh" &&
curl -fsSLO "https://github.com/rcourtman/Pulse/releases/download/${PULSE_VERSION}/install.sh.sshsig" &&
ssh-keygen -Y verify \
-f <(printf '%s\n' 'pulse-installer namespaces="pulse-install" ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIMZd/DaH+BldzOkq1A8KVTcFk73nAyrE8aJOyf7i00jm pulse-installer') \
-I pulse-installer \
-n pulse-install \
-s install.sh.sshsig < install.sh &&
bash install.sh --version "${PULSE_VERSION}"
Paste the whole block: installation stops if either download or signature verification fails. Do not run the final command separately to bypass a failure.
The GitHub installer installs the Pulse server. Install and upgrade agents (including v5-to-v6 agent upgrades) with the per-host command generated under Settings → Infrastructure → Install on a host.
Do you need an agent?
Often not. Proxmox VE, PBS, and PMG are monitored through the Proxmox API with a read-only token, so nothing runs on the host and the generated setup script creates a privilege-separated monitoring user. Install the unified agent only where you want data the platform API cannot provide, such as host SMART health, temperatures, Docker hosts, or standalone machines.
The agent is operator-controlled by design. Command execution is off by
default, the local listener binds to localhost, and generated systemd units
ship hardened. On Linux, the installer's --least-privilege profile runs the
service as a dedicated non-root user, with optional scoped sudo grants for
the few collectors that need elevation. The
agent security model documents exactly what the
agent can and cannot do at each privilege level.
Important
GitHub release assets and
rcourtman/pulseimages are Community builds. Relay, Pro, and eligible legacy customers should use the private image or Linux archive provided by the Pulse download portal. Replacing a private Pro runtime with a public Community build removes its private runtime hooks.
Editions
- Community — self-hosted monitoring, seven days of metric history, core SSO, update alerts, and Patrol with your own provider or local model.
- Pro — Community plus Patrol investigation, governed fixes, ninety days of history, centralized agent profiles, RBAC, audit logging, and reporting.
- MSP — for managed service providers: one Pulse Account running many client workspaces, each with an isolated Pulse runtime — separate dashboards, alerts, users, audit history, and reports. Free sixty-day two-client evaluation at Pulse for MSPs.
Relay is no longer sold. Existing Relay subscribers receive Pro features at their current price for as long as their subscription continues. Existing paired phones keep working until 31 March 2027. Relay connects the app, not the web UI. Use your own VPN or tunnel for remote web access. For phone alerts, add an ntfy, Gotify or Pushover destination and open Pulse in your phone's browser.
Core self-hosted monitoring is not gated by monitored-system or child-resource volume. See the runtime-aligned capability reference and current plans for details.
Documentation
- Install and deployment
- Production deployment and security
- Upgrade from Pulse v5
- Releases and update channels
- Configuration
- Platform and agent guides
- Pulse Intelligence
- Security and privacy
- Code signing policy
- Troubleshooting
- API reference and architecture
Localized getting started guides: Deutsch · Español
Development
Pulse uses Go 1.26 and a SolidJS/TypeScript frontend. The managed development
runtime starts the frontend at http://127.0.0.1:5173 and proxies API and
WebSocket traffic to the backend on port 7655.
npm ci
npm --prefix frontend-modern ci
npm run dev
Useful checks:
go test ./...
npm --prefix frontend-modern test
npm --prefix frontend-modern run type-check
python3 scripts/check_public_docs.py
See CONTRIBUTING.md before investing in a code change. Pulse uses an issue-first contribution process and does not normally accept unsolicited pull requests.
Community and support
- Ask questions in GitHub Discussions.
- Report reproducible bugs through GitHub Issues.
- Home Assistant users can use the community-maintained Pulse add-ons.
- If Pulse is useful to you, support its development through GitHub Sponsors or Ko-fi.
License
Everything in this repository is licensed under the MIT License. There is no dual licensing and no commercial or source-available code here.
Pulse Pro is a separate commercial product, built from private sources and distributed through pulserelay.pro. Its use is governed by the Terms of Service, which apply to that product only, not to anything in this repository.