checking websites and DNS registration with xymon
list David Hay Currie
I know I posted this in a previous email, but I still did not get any answer. I am trying to monitor websites that we have. Most of DNS domains points to the same web site. 1. How can I check the status of the domain registration? There is a dnsreg in the xymon demo pages, but I did not find any information regarding this feature or how to set it up 2. How can I monitor the IP address that a domain has. In the demo pages there is a check for IP, which probably would do what I want 3. Currently I am just checkin by using "0.0.0.0 www.domainname.com # noconn http://www.domainname.com"; which works, but once an hour a couple of checks go red at the same time, and this is most likely due to slow response from the server. Basically I want to avoid DoSing the web server with my tests. Suggestions? David
list Henrik Størner
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In <user-733bb26bdf7a@xymon.invalid> "David Hay Currie" <user-ab244b10c769@xymon.invalid> writes:
I am trying to monitor websites that we have. Most of DNS domains points to the same web site.
1. How can I check the status of the domain registration? There is a dnsreg in the xymon demo pages, but I did not find any information regarding this feature or how to set it up
The 'dnsreg' status is a quickly hacked together script that uses data from "whois" to determine when the domain expires. Not pretty, and not particularly portable - it just works for those top-level domains I have registered. You can see the script now at http://www.hswn.dk/hobbit-cgi/viewconf.sh?dnsreg
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2. How can I monitor the IP address that a domain has. In the demo pages there is a check for IP, which probably would do what I want
It is pretty straight-forward to write a script that checks the output from a "host www.mydomain.com" against a static IP...
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3. Currently I am just checkin by using "0.0.0.0 www.domainname.com # noconn http://www.domainname.com"; which works, but once an hour a couple of checks go red at the same time, and this is most likely due to slow response from the server. Basically I want to avoid DoSing the web server with my tests. Suggestions?
I seriously doubt that your server would be DoS'ed by the single request every 5 minutes that Xymon generates - if it does, then you have a whole different problem! You can increase the timeout (--timeout=N option to bbtest-net), or you can add a "badhttp:1:2:3" option to those entries in bb-hosts, then they won't go red until after 3 failed tests (see the "badTEST" description in the bb-hosts(5) man-page). Regards, Henrik -- Henrik Storner
list David Hay Currie
Thanks Henrik. I got the dnsreg working, which is great because one of the domains was expired since Saturday and I did not know about it. I can't really write scripts, so for me writing a script is a bit difficult. I can understand some of the coding, but I have never studied programming. So, that brings me to the problem that I have no idea how to write a script to check the IP address of a domain. If you could put an example of the IP script it would be a great help. About my point 3 for the DoS of the server. We have 30 domains, and they are all pointing to the same web page. Whenever a http check fails, it fails for 2 domains at the same time, that is why I think either it creates a bottleneck on the server, or at the xymon server. I doubt the xymon server is the problem, so I am thinking the IIS server for the web site gets confused or worked up :p. This does not happen with the other 3 domains that have separate hosting and web pages. David
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-----Original Message-----
From: Henrik "Størner [mailto:user-ce4a2c883f75@xymon.invalid]
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 4:28 PM
To: user-ae9b8668bcde@xymon.invalid
Subject: Re: [hobbit] checking websites and DNS registration with xymon
In <user-733bb26bdf7a@xymon.invalid> "David Hay Currie" <user-ab244b10c769@xymon.invalid> writes:
I am trying to monitor websites that we have. Most of DNS domains points to the same web site.
1. How can I check the status of the domain registration? There is a dnsreg in the xymon demo pages, but I did not find any information regarding this feature or how to set it up
The 'dnsreg' status is a quickly hacked together script that uses data from "whois" to determine when the domain expires. Not pretty, and not particularly portable - it just works for those top-level domains I have registered. You can see the script now at http://www.hswn.dk/hobbit-cgi/viewconf.sh?dnsreg
2. How can I monitor the IP address that a domain has. In the demo pages there is a check for IP, which probably would do what I want
It is pretty straight-forward to write a script that checks the output from a "host www.mydomain.com" against a static IP...
3. Currently I am just checkin by using "0.0.0.0 www.domainname.com # noconn http://www.domainname.com"; which works, but once an hour a couple of checks go red at the same time, and this is most likely due to slow response from the server. Basically I want to avoid DoSing the web server with my tests. Suggestions?
I seriously doubt that your server would be DoS'ed by the single request every 5 minutes that Xymon generates - if it does, then you have a whole different problem! You can increase the timeout (--timeout=N option to bbtest-net), or you can add a "badhttp:1:2:3" option to those entries in bb-hosts, then they won't go red until after 3 failed tests (see the "badTEST" description in the bb-hosts(5) man-page). Regards, Henrik -- Henrik Storner