# Heartbeat.config.monitors option not working on 6.5.4?
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/heartbeat-config-monitors-option-not-working-on-6-5-4/166755
**Category:** Beats
**Tags:** heartbeat
**Created:** [February 1, 2019, 3:27pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/heartbeat-config-monitors-option-not-working-on-6-5-4/166755 "2019-02-01T15:27:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@leandrojmp](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/leandrojmp)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2019, 3:27pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/heartbeat-config-monitors-option-not-working-on-6-5-4/166755/1 "2019-02-01T15:27:14Z")
Hello,
I'm trying to use heartbeat to monitor the uptime of some devices and looking into the documentation I saw that is possible to have your monitors in a separated file instead of having them in the main `heartbeat.yml` file.
I created the file `uptime.yml` inside the folder `/etc/heartbeat/monitors.d/` and put my monitors there, each monitor is like the following, and I have thousands of them.
```auto
- type: icmp
schedule: "* */5 * * * * *"
hosts: ["host-0001"]
```
On my `heartbeat.yml` I used the following configuration for the monitoring:
```auto
heartbeat.config.monitors:
path: /etc/heartbeat/monitors.d/*.yml
reload.enabled: true
reload.period: 3600s
```
But this does not work, the devices are not being monitored.
If I put the monitors inside `heartbeat.yml` and use `heartbeat.monitors:` as show below, everything works.
```auto
heartbeat.monitors:
- type: icmp
schedule: "* */5 * * * * *"
hosts: ["host-0001"]
- type: icmp
schedule: "* */5 * * * * *"
hosts: ["host-0002"]
- type: icmp
schedule: "* */5 * * * * *"
hosts: ["host-NNNN"]
```
Am I missing something? I just following the documentation provided here [https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/heartbeat/6.5/configuration-heartbeat-options.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/heartbeat/6.5/configuration-heartbeat-options.html)
---
### Author:  [@Andrew\_Cholakian1](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Andrew_Cholakian1)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2019, 4:08pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/heartbeat-config-monitors-option-not-working-on-6-5-4/166755/2 "2019-02-01T16:08:30Z")
Are you sure you meant to use `* */5 * * * * *` as the cron syntax? That will check the monitors once every 5 hours. So, it may take up to 5 hours to see any data. It's probably easier to use Heartbeat's `@every` syntax, where you could write `@every 5m`
---
### Author:  [@leandrojmp](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/leandrojmp)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2019, 4:33pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/heartbeat-config-monitors-option-not-working-on-6-5-4/166755/3 "2019-02-01T16:33:02Z")
It's every 5 minutes, not every 5 hours.
It is working when the monitors are on the `heartbeat.yml`, but it does not work when I configure it to use the `heartbeat.config.monitors` and put the monitors on another file.
---
### Author:  [@leandrojmp](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/leandrojmp)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2019, 8:03pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/heartbeat-config-monitors-option-not-working-on-6-5-4/166755/4 "2019-02-01T20:03:14Z")
Updated heartbeat to 6.6 but had the same problem, if the monitors are on separated files they do not work.
Tested using the path as a reference to path.config, but no change, using quotes or not also made no difference.
```auto
heartbeat.config.monitors:
path: ${path.config}/monitors.d/*.yml
reload.enabled: true
reload.period: 3600s
```
---
### Author:  [@Andrew\_Cholakian1](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Andrew_Cholakian1)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2019, 10:30pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/heartbeat-config-monitors-option-not-working-on-6-5-4/166755/5 "2019-02-01T22:30:39Z")
I've confirmed that 6.6 does work correctly with the given config. The cron config is however incorrect, the first position is minutes, the second position is hours.
Can you give it a shot with a schedule of `@every 5m` or `"*/1 * * * * * *"`
---
### Author:  [@leandrojmp](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/leandrojmp)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2019, 3:56pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/heartbeat-config-monitors-option-not-working-on-6-5-4/166755/6 "2019-02-02T15:56:00Z")
I will try to change it to `@every 5m` when I get back to work to see if it solves the problem, but I dont think that the cron expression is wrong, the [documentation](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/heartbeat/current/heartbeat-configuration.html) even has an example where the first position is seconds.
And as I showed on a previous post, the monitoring is working when I use the monitors on `heartbeat.yml` with `heartbeat.monitors`, but it does not work if I use an external file and use `heartbeat.config.monitors`, that is what I'm trying to understand what is missing.
---
### Author:  [@leandrojmp](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/leandrojmp)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2019, 4:59pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/heartbeat-config-monitors-option-not-working-on-6-5-4/166755/7 "2019-02-04T16:59:45Z")
Hello,
I made some tests today and I think I've found the problem.
When using `heartbeat.config.monitors` heartbeat is only loading the configuration after the `reload.period` has elapsed.
On my configuration I was using `reload.period` equal as 3600s, when I changed the `reload.period` to `30s` I saw that the monitors set with the schedule of `@every 5m` started appearing `5m+30s` after heartbeat was started.
As you can see in the prints below, I've started heartbeat at `12:45:03`, so the beats should be triggered on `12:50:03` but they were only triggered at `12:50:33`.
Heartbeat started time print.
First beat triggered 5m + 30s after heartbeat start time and after that, each 5 minutes.
For another test I've changed my `reload.period` to `45s` and could confirm that the configuration is only loadaded after the `reload.period` time has elapsed.
Heartbeat started at `13:20:00`
First beat after schedule time + `reload.period`
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2019, 4:59pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/heartbeat-config-monitors-option-not-working-on-6-5-4/166755/8 "2019-03-04T16:59:50Z")
This topic was automatically closed 28 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.