LinkScan for Unix. Reference Manual.

Section 23

LinkScan Pinger

LinkScan Pinger is a small self-contained utility that may be used to periodically check a list of URL's and raise e-mail alarms if certain error conditions arise.

On each pass, the LinkScan Pinger will access each of the supplied URL's and log the results to a simple text file. Optionally, it may be configured to send e-mail alarms to one of more addresses if certain error thresholds are exceeded. In addition to generating alarms based on link status, the LinkScan Pinger may also be configured such that the document body for a given URL *must contain* (or must not contain) a specific string/expression.

This means the Pinger may be used to ensure the availability of back-end databases and other services as well as the uptime of the basic network/webserver functions.

In order to use the LinkScan Pinger you must:

• Configure LinkScan (linkscan.sys) with a valid License Number and Key.

• Configure the file linkscan.cfg (described below).

• Configure the LinkScan to Email Interface if you wish the LinkScan Pinger to send Email alarms. See: LinkScan to Email Interface.

We have designed the LinkScan Pinger configuration file to be extremely simple yet flexible. In many cases, it is only necessary to enter a list of URL's to be checked. Optionally, an email address (or comma-separated list of addresses) may be entered if alarm messages are to be generated.

# Pinglog      = Pinger log file
# Pingsecs     = Interval (seconds) between "pings" (perl pinger.pl -repeat)
# Probe        = Diagnostic trace; record HTTP headers in Pinglog
# Followext    = Follow redirections

Pinglog = pinger.log
Pingsecs = 600
Probe = 0
Followext = 0

# Pingmail     = E-mail address (comma-separated list) to receive alarm messages
# Pingsubj     = Subject line for e-mail alarm messages
# Pingsev      = Establish alarm thresholds

Pingmail = 
Pingsubj = LinkScan Pinger Alarm
Pingsev = 0,1    # One or more Status Unknown
Pingsev = 1,1    # One or more Errors
Pingsev = 2,1    # One or more Possible Errors
Pingsev = 3,2    # Two or more Warnings
Pingsev = 4,2    # Two or more Advisories

# Url          = Links to be "pinged" on each pass
# Url          = absolute-url [must-contain-expr  must-not-contain-expr]
# URL's may be followed by one or two optional Regular Expressions
# These are matched against the document body. In the following example
# the page returned from http://www.yahoo.com/ must match the string "Yahoo".
# And it must not match the expression "not\sfound"
#
# Url = http://www.yahoo.com/ Yahoo not\sfound
# Url = http://www.google.com/

Url = 

To execute the LinkScan Pinger:

perl pinger.pl [-repeat] [-test]

none       Test each configured URL once only

-repeat    Cycle continuously testing each URL every "Pingsecs" seconds.

-test      Single pass, forcing at least one error to generate an e-mail alarm

LinkScan for Unix. Reference Manual. Section 23. LinkScan Pinger
LinkScan Version 12.3
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