tutorial

How to Monitor EspoCRM with Vigilmon

EspoCRM is a modern, lightweight open-source CRM platform (PHP/JavaScript, GPL-3.0) designed for teams that need clean architecture, extensive REST API cover...

EspoCRM is a modern, lightweight open-source CRM platform (PHP/JavaScript, GPL-3.0) designed for teams that need clean architecture, extensive REST API coverage, and a fast, self-hostable alternative to heavier CRM suites. With over 200 extensions available and active community development, EspoCRM is a popular choice for small-to-medium teams and VPS deployments where resource efficiency matters.

When you self-host EspoCRM, you take on full operational responsibility. This tutorial walks you through setting up comprehensive monitoring for a self-hosted EspoCRM installation using Vigilmon — so you catch outages, API failures, and background job stoppages before your team does.

Why monitoring EspoCRM matters

EspoCRM is a multi-layer PHP application with a REST API backend, a JavaScript SPA frontend, and a daemon-based background job runner. Each layer can fail independently:

  • Web server / PHP failure — Apache or Nginx stops serving requests; users get 502 or a blank page
  • Database connectivity loss — EspoCRM's PHP backend can't connect to MySQL/MariaDB; API calls return 500 errors
  • REST API routing failure — the API path is misconfigured or PHP-FPM exhausted; integrations lose connectivity
  • Background job runner stoppage — daemon.php stops processing jobs; email fetching, workflow triggers, and reminders silently queue up
  • SPA loading failure — a bad deployment or nginx misconfiguration causes the JavaScript frontend to fail to load

External monitoring from Vigilmon checks each layer from the outside — the same perspective as your users and integrated tools.

What you'll need

  • A running self-hosted EspoCRM instance (Linux/Apache, Nginx, or Docker)
  • A free Vigilmon account — no credit card required
  • Your EspoCRM public URL (e.g. https://crm.yourdomain.com)

Step 1: Monitor the EspoCRM web UI

The web UI check confirms that your web server is serving the EspoCRM frontend at all.

  1. Log in to vigilmon.online and go to Monitors → New Monitor
  2. Choose HTTP / HTTPS
  3. Set the URL to: 
    https://crm.yourdomain.com/
  4. Check interval: 1 minute
  5. Expected status code: 200
  6. (Optional) Response body contains: EspoCRM
  7. Save the monitor

A successful 200 response confirms that nginx or Apache is running and the SPA entry point is being served.

Step 2: Monitor the REST API health endpoint (unauthenticated)

EspoCRM exposes an unauthenticated API health endpoint that returns version and application status information. This is the ideal lightweight health probe.

  1. Create a new HTTP / HTTPS monitor
  2. URL: 
    https://crm.yourdomain.com/api/v1/App/about
  3. Check interval: 1 minute
  4. Expected status code: 200
  5. (Optional) Response body contains: version
  6. Save the monitor

This endpoint returns a JSON payload like {"version":"8.x.x","coreVersion":"..."}. It is unauthenticated and fast, making it the best primary uptime check for EspoCRM's API layer. If the PHP runtime, routing, or JSON serialization stack is broken, this will fail.

Step 3: Monitor authenticated API connectivity (database check)

The /api/v1/App/user endpoint returns authenticated user information and requires a valid session or API key. Adding this check verifies not just the API layer, but also database connectivity — because EspoCRM must query the database to return user data.

  1. Create a new HTTP / HTTPS monitor
  2. URL: 
    https://crm.yourdomain.com/api/v1/App/user
  3. Method: GET
  4. Add HTTP headers: 
    X-Api-Key: YOUR_ESPOCRM_API_KEY
  5. Check interval: 2 minutes
  6. Expected status code: 200
  7. (Optional) Response body contains: userName
  8. Save the monitor

To create a dedicated API key for monitoring:

  1. In EspoCRM, go to Administration → API Users
  2. Create a new API User with read-only access
  3. Copy the generated API key and paste it into the Vigilmon monitor header

This check catches database connection failures that the unauthenticated /App/about endpoint might not reveal.

Step 4: Monitor SSL certificate expiry

An expired TLS certificate locks out every user and API integration simultaneously — with no warning to end users except a browser error.

  1. Create a new SSL Certificate monitor in Vigilmon
  2. Domain: crm.yourdomain.com
  3. Alert thresholds:
    • Warning: 30 days before expiry
    • Critical: 7 days before expiry
  4. Save the monitor

If you're using Let's Encrypt with certbot or acme.sh, this monitor acts as a safety net if auto-renewal fails silently.

Step 5: Monitor EspoCRM background job runner with a heartbeat

EspoCRM's background job runner (daemon.php) is responsible for fetching emails via IMAP, processing workflow triggers, sending reminder notifications, and running scheduled jobs. If the daemon stops — due to a PHP crash, memory exhaustion, or a deployment error — these operations queue up silently with no visible indicator in the UI.

Create a Vigilmon heartbeat monitor

  1. In Vigilmon, go to Monitors → New Monitor
  2. Choose Heartbeat / Cron Job
  3. Name it EspoCRM Background Job Runner
  4. Set the expected interval to 5 minutes
  5. Copy the generated heartbeat URL: 
    https://vigilmon.online/heartbeat/YOUR_TOKEN
  6. Save the monitor

Configure the EspoCRM cron job to ping Vigilmon

EspoCRM uses a cron job to drive its background processing. Modify /etc/cron.d/espocrm or the web server user's crontab:

* * * * * www-data /usr/bin/php /var/www/html/espocrm/cron.php > /dev/null 2>&1 && curl -fsS --retry 3 https://vigilmon.online/heartbeat/YOUR_TOKEN > /dev/null

If you're running the daemon mode instead:

# /etc/systemd/system/espocrm-daemon.service
[Unit]
Description=EspoCRM Daemon
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=www-data
WorkingDirectory=/var/www/html/espocrm
ExecStart=/usr/bin/php daemon.php
Restart=always
RestartSec=10

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

For daemon mode, add a periodic health ping from a wrapper script or use the /api/v1/App/about heartbeat check instead — if the daemon is processing jobs, the API remains responsive:

*/5 * * * * www-data curl -fsS --retry 3 https://crm.yourdomain.com/api/v1/App/about > /dev/null && curl -fsS --retry 3 https://vigilmon.online/heartbeat/YOUR_TOKEN > /dev/null

Step 6: Configure alert channels

  1. In Vigilmon, go to Alert Channels → Add Channel
  2. Add your preferred notification channels:
    • Slack — route alerts to #operations or #crm-alerts
    • Email — notify the EspoCRM administrator
    • Webhook — forward to PagerDuty, OpsGenie, or a custom endpoint

Recommended alert tiers:

| Tier | Trigger | Channel | |------|---------|---------| | Immediate | /App/about API unavailable | Slack + email + pager | | Immediate | Authenticated API failure (DB down) | Slack + email | | Warning | Background job heartbeat missed | Slack + email | | Maintenance | SSL expiry within 30 days | Email |

Step 7: Docker Compose deployment with health checks

If you're running EspoCRM with Docker, add health checks to detect container-level failures:

version: "3.9"

services:
  espocrm:
    image: espocrm/espocrm:latest
    ports:
      - "80:80"
    environment:
      ESPOCRM_DATABASE_HOST: mariadb
      ESPOCRM_DATABASE_NAME: espocrm
      ESPOCRM_DATABASE_USER: espocrm
      ESPOCRM_DATABASE_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD}
      ESPOCRM_ADMIN_USERNAME: admin
      ESPOCRM_ADMIN_PASSWORD: ${ADMIN_PASSWORD}
    depends_on:
      mariadb:
        condition: service_healthy
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "curl", "-f", "http://localhost/api/v1/App/about"]
      interval: 30s
      timeout: 10s
      retries: 3
      start_period: 60s
    restart: unless-stopped

  espocrm-daemon:
    image: espocrm/espocrm:latest
    command: ["daemon.php"]
    environment:
      ESPOCRM_DATABASE_HOST: mariadb
      ESPOCRM_DATABASE_NAME: espocrm
      ESPOCRM_DATABASE_USER: espocrm
      ESPOCRM_DATABASE_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD}
    depends_on:
      mariadb:
        condition: service_healthy
    restart: unless-stopped

  mariadb:
    image: mariadb:10.11
    environment:
      MARIADB_ROOT_PASSWORD: ${ROOT_PASSWORD}
      MARIADB_DATABASE: espocrm
      MARIADB_USER: espocrm
      MARIADB_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD}
    volumes:
      - espocrm_db:/var/lib/mysql
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "healthcheck.sh", "--connect", "--innodb_initialized"]
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  espocrm_db:

Complete monitor setup summary

| Monitor | Type | Target | Interval | Catches | |---------|------|--------|----------|---------| | Web UI | HTTP | / | 1 min | Web server / frontend crash | | API health (unauth) | HTTP | /api/v1/App/about | 1 min | PHP, routing, JSON failure | | API + DB (auth) | HTTP | /api/v1/App/user | 2 min | Database connectivity loss | | Background job runner | Heartbeat | cron.php exit ping | 5 min | Daemon / cron stoppage | | SSL certificate | SSL | crm.yourdomain.com | Daily | Certificate expiry |

Conclusion

EspoCRM's lightweight footprint and clean REST API make it excellent for VPS self-hosting — but that same lightness means there's no built-in monitoring dashboard watching for problems. A PHP crash, a database connection exhaustion, or a stopped daemon can silently break your team's workflows for hours.

With Vigilmon monitoring each layer of your EspoCRM installation, you get 60-second detection of every outage and the background job heartbeat means silent daemon failures don't go unnoticed either.

Start monitoring for free at vigilmon.online.

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