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Suggestions for checking on downtime

Posted: Thu Jun 04, 2009 2:45 pm
by mikemike
Howdy,

I'm in the process of creating a web application that checks for server and website downtime. This is not a new idea but I believe the only real places out there offering a half decent service are far over-priced.

I intend to do things a little different to competitors, offering a much more comprehensive testing method. I have some ideas up my sleeve for checking whether websites are down (grabbing headers and checking for HTTP codes, checking against page content given by users, checking for PHP warnings / errors, etc). As well as checking the web sites themselves I'll also be offering a service via IP.

What methods would you suggest are best for checking if a server is online (when the user gives me an IP). So far all I have is:
- Pinging (obviously user checks a box to make sure their server is pingable)
- As this is aimed at websites I could do a simple check on port 80, but a lot of virtual servers ignore this so I'm unsure.

And what methods would you suggest for checking if a website is online and error free (this is when someone gives me a URL)? So far I have:
- Grabbing HTTP headers and checking code (anything other than 200 is flagged)
- User gives, for example, the top 10 lines of a page, if that page changes then it's flagged. I realise this would cause issues if done on the content but it should flag important issues (like PHP errors, etc) if just done on the <head> tags
- Run a check on the page for PHP errors and warnings

Obviously some fo these aren't suitable for everyone and everything is completely customisable, so you can run with what you want.

At first the system is going to be free of charge and my only revenue stream will be through sending SMS messages, so I'll be sure to share the url with forum users here once the project is complete.

Any feedback is welcome.

Thanks

Re: Suggestions for checking on downtime

Posted: Thu Jun 04, 2009 2:51 pm
by Chalks
I've actually never come across this before. Are you talking about a service that would let a webmaster know if/when their site has crashed? If so, it would be great if you could also figure out a way to make it so they could get an alert when they are experiencing an unusually high amount of traffic so they could hopefully avert a crash.

Re: Suggestions for checking on downtime

Posted: Thu Jun 04, 2009 2:55 pm
by mikemike
Yeah, at the moment it's all done via email and SMS. You decide which.

I could do some sort of traffic monitoring, but that would mean putting some sort of code on the users website, which I'd rather steer clear from at the moment - definitely something I'd like to add in the future though. I like the idea that someone can come on, sign up (which takes 20seconds), add a url and they're instantly notified the second their server goes down.

Also, I have a client who runs an e-commerce shop selling tickets. When something big comes up like a Michael Jackson concert his hits spike from 500 a day upto 50,000 per day (an example). He has provisions in place to cope with this so I doubt he'd want to know. Having said that, that's why users have the option to turn it off...

Re: Suggestions for checking on downtime

Posted: Thu Jun 04, 2009 6:14 pm
by mikemike
Any suggestions on this then?

I begin coding the actual checker bot tomorrow, so would be handy to know what it's going to be doing before hand really.

Cheers