Getting Started
Get up and running with CanaryAlert in under 2 minutes. This guide walks you through creating your account and adding your first monitored source.
1Create your account
Head to canaryalert.io/sign-up and create your account. The free plan includes 3 monitored sources — no credit card required.
2Add your first source
From the dashboard, click "Add Source" and fill in:
- Name:A descriptive name like "Veeam Nightly Backup" or "SQL Agent - OrderDB Maintenance"
- Schedule:How often you expect to receive the notification email (e.g., every 24 hours)
- Grace period:Extra time to wait before marking as missing (e.g., 30 minutes)
3Define classification rules
Write plain-English rules that describe what success, failure, and warning look like for this source. For example:
Success rules
"Email subject contains 'Success' and the body mentions all VMs completed without errors"
Failure rules
"Email contains 'Error', 'Failed', or any VM shows a non-zero error code"
Warning rules
"Email mentions partial completion, warnings, or skipped items"
See Classification Rules for more examples and best practices.
4Set up email forwarding
After creating your source, you'll see a unique inbound email address like:
Set up a forwarding rule in your email client (Outlook, Gmail, etc.) or configure your backup software to CC this address. See Email Forwarding Setup for step-by-step instructions.
Alternative: HTTP ping. If your system can make HTTP requests instead of sending email (cron jobs, scripts, Docker containers), use the ping URL shown on your source's detail page. See HTTP Ping for details.
5Test your setup
Use the "Test Classification" button on the source detail page to paste a sample email and verify your rules work as expected before going live.
6Set up alert channels (optional)
Email alerts are enabled by default. You can also send alerts to Slack or any HTTPS webhook endpoint (PagerDuty, OpsGenie, Teams). Go to Settings to configure your Slack and webhook URLs. See Integrations for details.