diff --git a/ccollectd/ccollectd b/ccollectd/ccollectd
index 1c461ff..9a0c58d 100755
--- a/ccollectd/ccollectd
+++ b/ccollectd/ccollectd
@@ -10,9 +10,6 @@ distributor.bind("ipc:///tmp/ccollectd-stats")
 
 poller = zmq.Poller()
 
-def heartbeat():
-	pass # TO DO: Check if all endpoints are still pingable...
-
 with open("config.yaml", "r") as cfile:
 	config = yaml.safe_load(cfile)
 
@@ -20,10 +17,49 @@ with open("privkey.dat", "r") as f:
 	privkey = PrivateKey(binascii.unhexlify(f.read()))
 
 nodes = config["nodes"]
+last_node_status = {}
 socket_map = {}
 boxes = {}
+
+def heartbeat():
+	for hostname, node in nodes.iteritems():
+		try:
+			s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
+			s.settimeout(config["heartbeat"]["timeout"])
+			s.connect((node["ip"], node["port"]))
+			s.shutdown(socket.SHUT_RDWR)
+			s.close()
+			up = True
+		except socket.error, e:
+			up = False
+			
+		try:
+			status_changed = (up != last_node_status[hostname])
+			initial = False
+		except KeyError, e:
+			status_changed = True
+			initial = True
+			
+		last_node_status[hostname] = up
+		
+		if status_changed:
+			if up:
+				msg_type = "up"
+			else:
+				msg_type = "down"
+				
+			distributor.send(msgpack.packb({
+				"host": config["hostname"],
+				"message": {
+					"service": "heartbeat",
+					"msg_type": msg_type,
+					"unit": hostname,
+					"initial": initial
+				}
+			}))
+
 timers = zmqtimer.ZmqTimerManager()
-timers.add_timer(zmqtimer.ZmqTimer(5, heartbeat))
+timers.add_timer(zmqtimer.ZmqTimer(config["heartbeat"]["interval"], heartbeat))
 
 for hostname, node in config["nodes"].iteritems():
 	boxes[hostname] = Box(privkey, PublicKey(binascii.unhexlify(node["pubkey"])))
diff --git a/ccollectd/config.yaml.example b/ccollectd/config.yaml.example
index e815d98..da3d140 100644
--- a/ccollectd/config.yaml.example
+++ b/ccollectd/config.yaml.example
@@ -1,3 +1,9 @@
+hostname: monitoring.cryto.net
+
+heartbeat:
+        interval: 5
+        timeout: 1
+
 nodes:
         localhost:
                 ip: 127.0.0.1