Frequently Asked Questions
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Everything you need to know about HostAtlas — from getting started with the agent to security, billing, and beyond. Can't find what you're looking for? Get in touch.
General
About HostAtlas
HostAtlas is an infrastructure visibility platform that automatically discovers and monitors your servers, services, domains, containers, and SSL certificates. Install a lightweight agent on each server and get a complete, always-current map of your entire infrastructure — with real-time metrics, alerting, and incident management built in.
You install a lightweight Go agent on each server. The agent automatically discovers running services, hosted domains, Docker containers, and SSL certificates. It reports system metrics every 30 seconds and sends all data to the HostAtlas platform over outbound HTTPS. You get a real-time dashboard with topology mapping, monitoring, alerting, and incident management.
HostAtlas supports any Linux server — physical, virtual, or cloud-based. The agent runs on all major distributions including Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux, Amazon Linux, and Fedora. It discovers services like Nginx, Apache, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, and Docker containers.
HostAtlas focuses on infrastructure visibility and monitoring rather than APM (Application Performance Monitoring). If you need server monitoring, auto-discovery, heartbeat checks, incident management, and alerting, HostAtlas can replace multiple tools. For deep application-level tracing and profiling, you may still use APM-specific tools alongside HostAtlas.
Agent
Installation & operation
The HostAtlas agent is a lightweight Go binary (under 10 MB) that runs as a system service on your servers. It handles auto-discovery of services, domains, containers, and certificates, collects system metrics, and reports everything to the HostAtlas platform over outbound HTTPS. No inbound ports are opened.
Run a single command on your server:
$ curl -sSL install.hostatlas.app | bash
The script downloads the agent binary, configures it as a system service, and starts auto-discovery immediately. The entire process takes about 30 seconds.
Yes. The agent only makes outbound HTTPS connections — no inbound ports are opened on your server. Every command the agent can execute is explicitly whitelisted at the binary level. It cannot run arbitrary commands. Communication is encrypted with TLS, and authentication uses per-server tokens.
The agent is designed for minimal resource usage. It typically consumes less than 20 MB of RAM and negligible CPU. It runs as a low-priority system service so it never competes with your production workloads.
The agent supports all major Linux distributions including Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux, Amazon Linux, and Fedora. It is a statically compiled Go binary with zero external dependencies, so it runs on virtually any Linux system with a 64-bit kernel.
The agent requires root access for installation (to set up the system service) and to collect certain system metrics. It runs as a dedicated system user with minimal privileges after installation.
Monitoring & Alerting
Metrics, checks, and notifications
HostAtlas collects CPU usage, memory utilization, disk I/O and usage, network traffic, load averages, process counts, and uptime. For discovered services, it collects service-specific metrics like connection counts and response times. Docker container metrics include CPU, memory, and network usage per container.
System metrics are collected every 30 seconds by default. Heartbeat checks run on configurable intervals starting at 15 seconds. Service discovery runs continuously in the background.
Heartbeat checks are external HTTP, TCP, or ICMP probes that run from HostAtlas infrastructure on a configurable schedule. If a check fails to receive a response within the timeout, an alert is triggered. Heartbeats are independent of the agent — they work for any publicly accessible endpoint.
HostAtlas supports email, Slack, PagerDuty, and webhook notifications. You can configure multiple channels per alert rule and set up escalation policies to route notifications to the right people at the right time.
Yes. Escalation policies are available on the Pro and Enterprise plans. You can define multi-step escalation chains that notify different team members or channels after specified time intervals if an alert is not acknowledged.
Security
Data protection & compliance
Yes. All data in transit is encrypted with TLS 1.2+. Data at rest is encrypted using AES-256. Database backups are encrypted. API keys and sensitive configuration values are encrypted at the application level before storage.
Yes. HostAtlas supports two-factor authentication via TOTP (Time-based One-Time Passwords). You can use any standard authenticator app like Google Authenticator, Authy, or 1Password. Team owners can enforce 2FA for all team members.
Each HostAtlas team is a fully isolated tenant. Data, servers, alerts, and configurations are strictly separated between teams. Team members can only access resources within their own team. There is no cross-tenant data access.
HostAtlas is designed with privacy in mind. We collect only the infrastructure data necessary to provide the service. Personal data processing is limited to account information (name, email). You can request data export or deletion at any time. Our infrastructure runs in data centers with appropriate security certifications.
Pricing & Billing
Plans, limits, and payments
Yes. The Free plan includes 1 server, 3 heartbeats, and 5 days of data retention. No credit card required. You get access to the full platform — the only limits are scale-related. Upgrade to a paid plan when you're ready to add more servers.
You will receive a notification when you approach your plan limits. If you exceed the server or heartbeat count, new servers or heartbeats will not be accepted until you upgrade your plan or remove existing resources. Existing monitoring is never interrupted.
Yes. You can upgrade or downgrade your plan at any time from your account settings. Upgrades take effect immediately with prorated billing. Downgrades take effect at the start of your next billing cycle.
Yes. Annual billing is available for all paid plans and comes with a discount compared to monthly billing. Contact us for enterprise annual agreements with custom terms.
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