- Introduction
- Scan Methodes
- Backend
- Frontend
- Installation
- Update
- Additional information
- Closing words
WIFI / LAN intruder detector with web service monitoring. The main functions are as follows:
- Scan your WIFI/LAN-connected devices and receive alerts for unknown device connections.
- Get warnings if an "always connected" device disconnects.
- Assess web service availability by evaluating the HTTP status code, SSL certificate, and service response time.
- Receive notifications if the SSL certificate changes, the HTTP status code changes, or if the service becomes unreachable.
- Detect unwanted/foreign DHCP servers
- Device monitoring using the ping command
There is also a companion script, Pi.Alert-Satellite, which performs its own scans and the results can be sent to an existing Pi.Alert instance.
Compare this fork with the main project
- arp-scan. The arp-scan system utility is used to search for devices on the network using arp frames.
- Pi-hole DNS. If the Pi-hole (v5 or v6) DNS server is active, Pi.Alert examines its activity looking for active devices using DNS that have not been detected by other methods.
- Pi-hole DHCP. If the Pi-hole (v5 or v6) DHCP server is active, Pi.Alert examines the DHCP leases (addresses assigned) to find active devices that were not discovered by the other methods.
- Fritzbox. If you use a Fritzbox (a router from the company "AVM"), it is possible to perform a query of the active hosts. This also includes hosts of the guest WLAN and Powerline devices from "AVM".
- Mikrotik. If you use Mikrotik Router as DHCP server, it is possible to read DHCP leases.
- UniFi. If you use UniFi controller, it is possible to read clients (Client Devices)
- OpenWRT, AsusWRT. If you are using one of these routers, you can import the active hosts.
- Web service monitoring. An HTTP request is sent and the web server's response is processed. If self signed certificates are used, no validation of the certificate is performed.
- ICMP monitoring. A "ping" is sent to a manually specified IP/hostname/domain name and the response is evaluated
- DHCP Server Scan. Nmap is used to send DHCP requests into the network to detect unknown (rogue) DHCP servers.
- Satellite Scan A companion script for Pi.Alert, which executes the Pi.Alert scan and some of the import methodes on an external host/network and sends the data as encrypted JSON to an existing Pi.Alert
The backend is controlled via the operating system's own cron service and is executed at 5-minute intervals. The task of the backend is to execute the various scans and imports, save the results in the database and send notifications according to the settings. In addition to host detection, it is also possible to check the availability of manually entered hosts or websites for their reachability and to receive notifications in the event of status changes. Various services are available for the notifications (Frontend, Mail (Guide), Pushsafer, Pushover, ntfy and Telegram through shoutrrrr (Guide)). Additional functions such as automatic database optimization, DB backups and Internet speed tests are also available via the backend. The CLI tool pialert-cli is available to control selected functions of the backend.
The frontend is used to manage the host information determined and for general management. You can store additional information for each device, view the historical history, perform manual nmap scans or send Wake-on-LAN commands. You also have the option of assigning individual devices to other network devices such as routers and switches in order to maintain an overview of the relationships between the devices. A settings page allows you to configure individual parts of the frontend, while a config file editor allows you to configure the backend. This interface, which is available in English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Polish, Danish, Dutch and Czech, can be protected with a login that uses the password “123456” by default. You can change this using the CLI tool pialert-cli.
New Favicons/Homescreen icons have been created based on the original design, tailored to different skins. To ensure compatibility with iOS devices, icons can be directly linked from the repository, as iOS devices may not load homescreen icons from insecure sources (without SSL or self-signed SSL).
It is possible to send various requests to the backend with the help of an API. The API can also be used to create an integration in Home Assistant or Homepage.
Initially designed to run on a Raspberry Pi, probably it can run on some other Linux distributions which use the "apt" package manager. Check "Things to keep in mind when using different Linux distributions" before using Pi.Alert with another Debian based distribution like DietPi or Ubuntu Server to see, if there are any special notes to follow.
| One-step Automated Install |
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- Installation Guide (step by step)
- Guide for the first start
- If you want to use Pi.Alert as LXC container, feel free to check out the Proxmox VE Helper-Scripts (originally tteck/Proxmox (archived)). I also support this version, as this Pi.Alert version is used with the exception of initial container creation. Updates to the LXC version are also installed from this repository. A separate update command is used for this purpose.
💡 Additional components and information
- Things to keep in mind when using different Linux distributions (will be updated if necessary)
- An initial fork but now independent version of Pi.Alert named NetAlertX based on Docker can be found here: jokob-sk/NetAlertX
- The original, but unmaintained, Pi.Alert can be found here pucherot/Pi.Alert
You can always check for a new release using the "Update Check" button in the sidebar. This check will show you if the GeoLite2 DB is installed or up to date and which new features, fixes or changes are available in the new Pi.Alert release, if you are not already using the latest version.
This update script is only recommended for an already existing installation of this fork. If you are using another fork, I recommend uninstalling it first. If you backup the database, it may be possible to continue using it with my fork after a patch (pialert-cli).
| One-step Automated Update |
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| One-step Automated Update (LXC - Proxmox Helper Scripts) |
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To Update Pi.Alert, run the command below (or type update) in the LXC Console. |
An archive of older versions can be found at https://leiweibau.net/archive/pialert. This archive contains all release notes of my fork.
If you would like to support me and my work, I offer the following options.
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A personal thank you 🙏 to every sponsor of my fork.
jbierwiler, tcoombs, hspindel, accessiblepixel, AJ Tatum, wsquared58
Also a big thank you to the direct or indirect contributors.
Macleykun, Final-Hawk, TeroRERO, jokob-sk, tteck and many more
Animated GIF (Loading Animation), Selfhosted Fonts, Bootstrap Icons, Material Design Icons, For final processing of background images, DeepL, ChatGPT
GPL 3.0 Read more here
