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Author Topic: check server to see if its up  (Read 20972 times)

techidave

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check server to see if its up
« on: March 09, 2008, 10:12 PM »
I am looking for some software that would check at regular intervals to see if a server is "up".  These servers would have a live IP so they could be checked from outside of the school network.  If it is down, then it would send an email or some other form of communication.  Preferrably something that is free or inexpensive.

Has anyone ever done any reviews on this type of software??

Thanks,
Dave

Maybe the word monitor is a better choice than up or down. :-[
« Last Edit: March 09, 2008, 10:26 PM by techidave »

justice

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Re: check server to see if its up
« Reply #1 on: March 10, 2008, 05:49 AM »
http://www.hostalive.net/hostalive.html
I used that for a while, it works well although I don't understand why on my system the config file was placed in my startup folder :D It can alert you by sound email or visually too.

techidave

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Re: check server to see if its up
« Reply #2 on: March 10, 2008, 06:55 AM »
Let me see if I can further complicate the problem.  I could run it on an internal station but if our internet or mail server are down then I won't get the alert.  I am needing to run this program from outside of our network so that I can be sure to get the alert message.   But at home, I am not always logged into the computer, so this program may not always be running. I could run it on my laptop but it isn't always on...

Perhaps there is a web base program?? 

Eóin

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Re: check server to see if its up
« Reply #3 on: March 10, 2008, 07:06 AM »
A windows service would run in the background as long as the machine is turned on even if no one is logged on. Google mentions some ways of running a normal program as a service, not having tried any of them I couldn't recommend a particular one.

justice

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Re: check server to see if its up
« Reply #4 on: March 10, 2008, 07:28 AM »
I just found this website: http://host-tracker.com/ if you want to get reports you can sign up for a free 30 day trial, after which it will revert to the free version. For two or less servers and weekly reports its free see http://host-tracker.com/order-page/ seems alright to check server performance but for uptime notification you need to sign up to one of the price plan.

justice

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Re: check server to see if its up
« Reply #5 on: March 10, 2008, 07:36 AM »
alternatively if you don't mind uploading a small textfile to your server, try http://uptime.openacs.org/ its more bare bones but its free it seems. testing this too.

techidave

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Re: check server to see if its up
« Reply #6 on: March 10, 2008, 07:57 AM »
Thanks Justice for the update.  I am in the process of checking them out but I will wait on your test results also.  Karen Kenworthy of http://www.karenware.com has a program called Net Monitor but to get the email alerts you also need to install her E-Mailer II program. 

mouser

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Re: check server to see if its up
« Reply #7 on: March 10, 2008, 01:53 PM »
DC member gothi[c] has been working on a really promising and very cool tool that does this kind of stuff and more -- he should post a progress report and some screenshots.

techidave

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Re: check server to see if its up
« Reply #8 on: March 10, 2008, 02:03 PM »
Cool, I can hardly wait! 8)

Mark0

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Re: check server to see if its up
« Reply #9 on: March 10, 2008, 04:13 PM »
There are some free (or non free, depending on the granularity of the checking and various other limitations) services that can do that. For example, I'm using from some years SiteUptime, and I find it very useful.

Bye!

tinjaw

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Re: check server to see if its up
« Reply #10 on: March 10, 2008, 06:03 PM »
techidave,

There are plenty of websites that will do that type of thing for you. Almost all of them will offer a free account to test 1-3 IP addresses and send you emails when then go up or down. Some will also allow you to test out getting paged via beeper or SMS/TXT message. Some I have personally tried and can recommend are...

Site24x7
http://site24x7.com/index.html

Hyperspin Website Monitoring
http://www.hyperspin.com/en/

YouMonitor.Us
http://youmonitor.us/

There are dozens more. Just Google for "website monitoring" and you will find 'em.

Gothi[c]

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Re: check server to see if its up
« Reply #11 on: March 11, 2008, 04:53 AM »
DC member gothi[c] has been working on a really promising and very cool tool that does this kind of stuff and more -- he should post a progress report and some screenshots.

Yes, I'm continuously working on a scriptable server monitoring system.

Basically, you can write a local or remote sensor plug-in which returns a value.
Custom triggers can be set on the return value of these sensors. When a trigger is triggered, alerts can be sent out via email or sms. These email addresses can be added to a web interface, which also shows a graph over time of each of the sensor values.

Some more advanced scripting can be done with the triggers, for example, return debug information. (eg: return a top (list of processes sorted by cpu load) + running mysql queries + list of connected ip's when the server load is too high) This can be useful for debugging peak problems. (When server load peaks, and by the time you log in to diagnose the problem, all is back to normal).

All of this has a GUI (work in progress) to easily add/create/manage sensors, triggers, and multiple servers. All of it works except for the GUI which is still very much under development.

All of this will be released under GPL whenever I'm "done" ;)

You may also want to have a look at Zenoss which is kind of similar to what I'm doing, except a lot more bloated, and seems to be a horrible cpu hog (it was when I tested it on my server anyway), it's not very easy to install unless you get the payware version. It has some really nice features though.

GUI:

excalibur.png

Some shots of web interface:
excalibur1.png

excalibur2.png




« Last Edit: March 11, 2008, 04:56 AM by Gothi[c] »

jshare

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Re: check server to see if its up
« Reply #12 on: March 27, 2008, 07:43 AM »
I use http://montastic.com, it's free and has some nice features.

Mark0

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Re: check server to see if its up
« Reply #13 on: March 27, 2008, 07:57 AM »
Gothi[c], just wanted to say that your tool really look like a fantastic one!  :Thmbsup:

Bye!

tinjaw

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Re: check server to see if its up
« Reply #14 on: March 27, 2008, 08:58 AM »
Gothi[c], just wanted to say that your tool really look like a fantastic one!

Unfortunately it will be a piece of crap that is as slow as molasses as it is hacked out in Python. Why don't you use a real language like C++.  ;)

Gothi[c]

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Re: check server to see if its up
« Reply #15 on: March 27, 2008, 03:35 PM »
Unfortunately it will be a piece of crap that is as slow as molasses as it is hacked out in Python. Why don't you use a real language like C++.  ;)



Well the GUI app IS coded in C++, I use python as a scripting language for plug-ins which is how it's supposed to be used, being a scripting language and all that. ;)

It is kind of cool how easy it is to integrate into C++..


edit by jgpaiva: removed https of the image's link
« Last Edit: March 27, 2008, 07:34 PM by jgpaiva »

Deozaan

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Re: check server to see if its up
« Reply #16 on: March 27, 2008, 06:14 PM »
Unfortunately it will be a piece of crap that is as slow as molasses as it is hacked out in Python. Why don't you use a real language like C++.  ;)

QFT! Tinjaw is encouraging someone to use C++ instead of Python!!!!!!   :o

Deozaan

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Re: check server to see if its up
« Reply #17 on: March 27, 2008, 06:15 PM »
Why does this thread keep asking me to accept a certificate from localhost.localdomain? No other place on this site asks me for it. It's just this thread.

jgpaiva

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Re: check server to see if its up
« Reply #18 on: March 27, 2008, 07:18 PM »
Why does this thread keep asking me to accept a certificate from localhost.localdomain? No other place on this site asks me for it. It's just this thread.
Weird, i also got the same!

And the strangest part is that it doesn't even change to https after the certificate is accepted!

PhilB66

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Re: check server to see if its up
« Reply #19 on: March 27, 2008, 07:20 PM »
Why does this thread keep asking me to accept a certificate from localhost.localdomain? No other place on this site asks me for it. It's just this thread.

Same here.

Mark0

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Re: check server to see if its up
« Reply #20 on: March 27, 2008, 07:26 PM »
One of the reply-notify email from this thread had an https address, in facts.

jgpaiva

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Re: check server to see if its up
« Reply #21 on: March 27, 2008, 07:32 PM »
The problem is the image gothic posted (the ahahah one), which for some strange reason triggers that certificate error. (if you don't accept the certificate, you can't see the image)

[edit] i removed the https, it should be OK now. [/edit]
« Last Edit: March 27, 2008, 07:34 PM by jgpaiva »