April 27, 2009 at 14:00How do you know when your server is down?
It happens that sites stop working. The reasons can be very different: in the data center the channel “fell”, the server went out, someone made something up with the database or files on the server, the system administrator unsuccessfully updated the software or transferred the accounts. Or someone forgot to pay for hosting.
In most cases, this situation is undesirable, but it must be eliminated as soon as possible. To do this, you need to find out what happened as soon as possible. But how? For ourselves and for our customers, we use website monitoring services. I’ll talk about them today.
The principle is simple: somewhere, a program is constantly running that periodically accesses your server and checks its operation. If something is wrong, the program notifies you by e-mail or even by SMS.
In the simplest case, the program checks if the server is accessible. But it may happen that the server is accessible, and instead of the main page of your online store, users see the infamous "hosting is not paid" or "account is blocked."
Proper monitoring services allow you to track such a situation. They can check the site pages for certain tags. Such a label can be a layout fragment or an HTML comment.
Quite advanced services even allow you to check the validity of an ssl certificate.
At the end of the week or month, the service can send a report. This is where you check your hoster's statements about uptime servers.
Of course, you can "stir up" such a script yourself, it’s easy. But services have an important advantage: firstly, all issues with programming, testing and support have already been resolved.
Secondly, if your script is physically located on one server, then its performance will depend on the performance of this server. There are dozens of specialized services for such servers.
Basic functions are provided free of charge. For a moderate fee, you can receive SMS notifications
This service first tries to resolve the site address via DNS, then - to establish an HTTP connection, sends an HTTP request. Then it analyzes the response code and tries to get the page. Check - every 15 minutes.
Failures at different stages will be counted as errors of different types. Thus, it is possible to localize the problem. And it’s very useful in situations where “everything works” from the host’s subnet, but is not accessible from the outside.
The service allows you to "hang" on one account an unlimited number of sites.
An interesting feature is the multiple notifications. For example, immediately when a problem is detected, the service can write to the report if the site does not work and after 15 minutes (it happens that it is just the server rebooting) - it will notify you by email and SMS, and if everything is bad after an hour, it can also be sent to the support hoster to write.
A large and satisfied advanced service, by the way, with the Russian version. Notifications can be sent via ICQ and Gtalk (I have not tried other jabber's).
Check on a free account - every 30 minutes. They write that they have 45 monitoring points. The initial paid tariff includes checking the availability of a keyword on the page. This may come in handy if you want to monitor some kind of service. Write a script that, when called, will check the operability and display the desired word on the page at a special address, the service will periodically access this address and track the keyword.
In general, colleagues, I propose adding a connection to the site monitoring service to your customer service standards.
In most cases, this situation is undesirable, but it must be eliminated as soon as possible. To do this, you need to find out what happened as soon as possible. But how? For ourselves and for our customers, we use website monitoring services. I’ll talk about them today.
How it works
The principle is simple: somewhere, a program is constantly running that periodically accesses your server and checks its operation. If something is wrong, the program notifies you by e-mail or even by SMS.
In the simplest case, the program checks if the server is accessible. But it may happen that the server is accessible, and instead of the main page of your online store, users see the infamous "hosting is not paid" or "account is blocked."
Proper monitoring services allow you to track such a situation. They can check the site pages for certain tags. Such a label can be a layout fragment or an HTML comment.
Quite advanced services even allow you to check the validity of an ssl certificate.
At the end of the week or month, the service can send a report. This is where you check your hoster's statements about uptime servers.
Is it possible to do such a thing yourself?
Of course, you can "stir up" such a script yourself, it’s easy. But services have an important advantage: firstly, all issues with programming, testing and support have already been resolved.
Secondly, if your script is physically located on one server, then its performance will depend on the performance of this server. There are dozens of specialized services for such servers.
How much is it
Basic functions are provided free of charge. For a moderate fee, you can receive SMS notifications
What we use
Basicstate.com
This service first tries to resolve the site address via DNS, then - to establish an HTTP connection, sends an HTTP request. Then it analyzes the response code and tries to get the page. Check - every 15 minutes.
Failures at different stages will be counted as errors of different types. Thus, it is possible to localize the problem. And it’s very useful in situations where “everything works” from the host’s subnet, but is not accessible from the outside.
The service allows you to "hang" on one account an unlimited number of sites.
An interesting feature is the multiple notifications. For example, immediately when a problem is detected, the service can write to the report if the site does not work and after 15 minutes (it happens that it is just the server rebooting) - it will notify you by email and SMS, and if everything is bad after an hour, it can also be sent to the support hoster to write.
Host-tracker.com
A large and satisfied advanced service, by the way, with the Russian version. Notifications can be sent via ICQ and Gtalk (I have not tried other jabber's).
Check on a free account - every 30 minutes. They write that they have 45 monitoring points. The initial paid tariff includes checking the availability of a keyword on the page. This may come in handy if you want to monitor some kind of service. Write a script that, when called, will check the operability and display the desired word on the page at a special address, the service will periodically access this address and track the keyword.
Finally
In general, colleagues, I propose adding a connection to the site monitoring service to your customer service standards.