Where there is an API that can be used then monitoring scripts use it, if there isn't then other methods are used, including telnet, curl, ping and wget. It's just easier to have one machine in the middle, that handles the monitoring of everything and then just tells me once a day that everything is good and it's still awake, or in 15 minutes or less if there is a problem; Said machine also has a web page running that is updated every 15 minutes . OpnSense is a brilliant piece of software, but its primary use is that of router/firewall, and I'll leave it to do what it's primarily designed to do.
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