Monitoring your web site. Checking if the host server is running.

Here I show you how to monitor your web site and check how many times per day your host is getting down.

All error codes and description will be stored in the MySql database on your host control panel. First, we have to create a table to store error information. I called the table "mylog"

If you do not know how to create table in MySql database using phpMyAdmin read my tutorial about phpMyAdmin.

We are going to use few PHP functions. The first one is curl_init() that initializes a new session and return a cURL handle. This cURL handle will be used with the curl_setopt(), curl_exec(), and curl_close() functions.

The bool curl_setopt ( resource $ch , int $option , mixed $value ) function sets URL options.

We will use this fuction to set two options. Detailed description of these options is located on www.PHP.net web site

CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER option is used to return only true or false from the curl_exec() function.

CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT option sets the number of seconds to wait while trying to connect.

//get today date and time in "2009-03-19 17:15:10" format
$amp;today=date("Y-m-d H:m:s");

$amp;url='http://www.mydomain.com'; // the URL of your web site
$amp;timeout = 60; // the number of seconds to wait for request.

$amp;curl_handle = curl_init($amp;url);
curl_setopt($amp;curl_handle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 0); // return TRUE or FALSE
curl_setopt($amp;curl_handle, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, $amp;timeout);

ob_start(); //turn on buffer
$amp;result = curl_exec($amp;curl_handle);
ob_end_clean(); //clear buffer
$amp;cinfo = curl_getinfo($amp;curl_handle);
curl_close($amp;curl_handle);

if ( !$amp;result || $amp;cinfo['http_code'] != 200 ) {
$cerror =" HTTP Code: [". $cinfo['http_code']. "]";
//Returns a text error message.
if ( curl_error($curl_handle) )
$cerror .= " ". curl_error($curl_handle);

       $amp;hostname = "localhost";
       $amp;dbuser = "your_user";
       $amp;dbpassword = "your_password";
       $amp;dbname = "your_db";

$amp;db_link=mysql_connect($amp;host, $amp;dbuser, $amp;dbpassword) or die("Unable to connect to the server!");

mysql_select_db($amp;dbname) or die("Unable to connect to the database");

$amp;isql="insert into mylog(id, cerror, errtime) values(0, '".$amp;cerror."','".$amp;today."')";

           if(!mysql_query($amp;isql))
           {
           echo mysql_errno() . ":error ";
           echo mysql_error() . "<br/>";
           }

}

Now to monitor your web site you have to run that sript periodically, for example, every hour. Your host control panel has cron job cron job icon in control panel

that allows you to set schedule and run the script.

Double click this icon and on the next window select the Advance (Unix Style) button.

On the next window set up time to run the script. On the table time set to run script once a day.

Then you have to enter the path to your script. You can fint it out on control panel. It is called "home directory.

If you cannot find home directory go to file manager

and double click the icon. You will see your home directory

If your script name is myscript.php and you put in the root directory, then your whole command will be like that:

First time you may try to run this script manually to see if you did not mistype something.

Then you may set time to nearest minute for example if now is 12:30 you can set cron table to 12:32 and save.

Computer Programming Web programming Tips

Monitoring your web site. Checking if the host server is running

PHP code to monitor your web site

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