Core Concepts¶
Core Concepts
NOB.center monitors the trust plane of your internet domains: the infrastructure that determines whether browsers, mail servers, and other parties consider your domains legitimate and your certificates trustworthy.
This section explains the key ideas behind the platform before you dive into individual modules.
The four monitoring pillars¶
- CT Log Certificate Transparency Monitoring
- Every TLS certificate issued by a public CA must be published to a Certificate Transparency log before browsers will trust it. NOB.center watches these logs for certificates that match your domains — including certificates you didn't ask for.
- DNS DNS Monitoring
- Your DNS records define who you are on the internet. NOB.center tracks changes to the records you care about and alerts you when something changes unexpectedly — from an A record pointing somewhere new to a nameserver being swapped out.
- RDAP RDAP / WHOIS Monitoring
- Domain registration data (registrar, nameservers, expiry date, contacts) is published via the RDAP protocol. NOB.center takes periodic snapshots and surfaces changes so you know if ownership details or registration status change.
- Cert Certificate Deployment Monitoring
- A certificate in a CT log does not mean it is deployed correctly. NOB.center actively connects to your servers to inspect the certificates they present — checking expiry, cipher suite strength, protocol versions, and chain validity.
Reports¶
The Reports module aggregates findings across all four pillars into a weekly audit snapshot. Each snapshot produces a score (A–F) with a breakdown by category, open findings, and notable activity. A PDF report can be emailed to your team on a weekly schedule.
See Reports for details.
How monitoring works¶
| Source | How it is monitored | Where results appear |
|---|---|---|
| Public CT logs | Followed continuously in real time | CT-Log feed |
| DNS records | Queried on a regular schedule | DNS changes feed |
| RDAP registries | Queried on a regular schedule | RDAP changes feed |
| Your servers | Actively scanned on a regular schedule | Certificate scan feed |
All events are logged and available for historical review. Your alert rules evaluate each incoming event and dispatch notifications when a condition matches.
Key shared concepts¶
| Concept | Summary |
|---|---|
| Organizations | The top-level tenant container that owns all your data |
| Roles & Permissions | Per-module access control for every user in your org |
| Quotas & Limits | How many resources each subscription tier allows |
| Alerting Model | Rules, templates, CEL expressions, and delivery modes |
| Glossary | Quick definitions of technical terms used throughout the docs |