monitoring web site uptime

i'm sure there is a way to monitor it from home...maybe setup a repeating php script on another site or your home computer to check to see if it's online, if it's not, it emails you...

Yeah, have a PHP script try to fopen the URL, if it fails have it e-mail you. Add a cronjob to have it run every X minutes (20 would be good I guess).

Joe Hussar wrote: Hello..............

My web site is a small ecommerce (candy making & cake decorating) business which has been growing. I find server outages can be expensive (due to lost orders), and always undetected until someone either lets me know & I find it.

Could anyone recommend a good site monitoring service? There seem to be quite a few out there, and a recommendation from a user is worth all the paid advertisements in the world.

Internet Seer seems to be popular........$80/month for checking every 20 min. seems high.....

Anu suggestions are appreciated!

Joe Hussar
candywebster@aol.com
candylandcrafts.com

Do you have a linux / unix box at home?

I use nagios to track my websites - http://www.nagios.org

Bryan

I'd like to know why it keeps going down!
Is it your own co-lo box, or are you one of many on their box?

I guess my first reaction is not to have to monitor the server's response, but to find out why it goes down and fix it! I guess it all depends on how often it dies!

How often does it go down?

Hello & thanks for responding............

I see your point but (a) without some kind of monitoring I really don't know how often it goes down (b) I do not want to rely on the host server to tell me

I had one situation where I believe the site was unavailable for over 24 hours. After asking, the host server advised there was no outage. That might be true, my conclusion was drawn from historical traffic patterns, but I'd rather know on an ongoing basis, instead of after the fact. To me, it's like insurance.

Lets assume for a moment that the host is correct in saying that there were no outages.

Could it it be your coding? It is all fine and dandy to point the finger at someone else when the problem actually lay with you. Are you certain that it is the hosts fault? I might have interpreted your post incorrectly but you say, that the orders are not received but then you find it again. If you are finding it again, the it probably would not be the host but the site itself.

http://www.alertra.com/

Not as expensive and prices depends on how you want it monitored and how often. It's very nice as well for an example view the site in my sig.