All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

Web application monitoring

Timbo on 2003-08-14T22:31:19

Does anyone know of a perl (or other, failing that) program to monitor an url, watch for certain text (like "ASP 0115", hypothetically), and perform some action? I could write the program myself, but would prefer to be lazy and impatient.

I support tens of web applications running on IIS and Apache. The main page of each one can return either valid data or invalid data. The ideal script would be able to

  • retrieve the return value of urls defined in a config file on a schedule
  • run regexes against the returned text, looking for either success or failure identifiers defined in a configuration file
  • if a failure test returns true, perform some action as defined specifically for that failure identifier
  • keep track of successive failures
  • email an account if the automatic resolution fails
  • log all results and actions

    Free would be a very nice price (and a very nice right), but my company might be willing to purchase COTS rather than pay for my time to develop it. I've looked at BigBrother and Microsoft Application Center, but BigBrother can't look inside pages (from my reading of the docs) and Application Center is too IIS specific. Any ideas?

    HTTP::WebTest

    johnseq on 2003-08-15T00:46:01

    HTTP::Webtest might be useful. It's actively developed and easy to use.

    You should be able to cron an almost-one-liner that greps webtest output and does something when it find failed tests.

    Re:HTTP::WebTest

    Timbo on 2003-08-15T06:13:42

    That is beautiful. You have no idea how much goodwill this is going to earn me... can I buy you a beer or pizza or name my next child after you?

    Wow. Here I thought this whole blog thing was just going to be an excercise in talking to myself... in the first day, I've been handed a raise by a complete stranger. Pretty soon, I'm going to be running for Governor of California!

    Re:HTTP::WebTest

    merlyn on 2003-08-15T17:25:34

    Also look at Test::* together with WWW::Mechanize. I've got a major client doing that, and I'll be doing some column articles on it as well.

    Re:HTTP::WebTest

    Timbo on 2003-08-15T17:35:16

    I'll look forward to those articles...

    HTTP::WebTest looks quite capable, but I'm always looking for a better way to do things.

    On a totally separate topic, I wish I could have joined you for the Alaska Perl Mongers barbecue when you were up here at the end of the last Geek Cruise... I trust you enjoyed your trip?

    CAM

    cbrandtbuffalo on 2003-08-15T16:06:15

    I got some email on a new monitoring thing called Covalent Application Manager (CAM). It looks like a full-blown monitoring solution with lots of reporting. I'm trying to find time to evaluate it. I did sit in on one webinar and it looks promising.



    Covalent does apache stuff, so they should have a good step up on monitoring. Don't yet know how much $, but looks like it might be pricey.

    Re:CAM

    Timbo on 2003-08-15T17:05:08

    Thanks! I'll take a closer look, but from what I can tell HTTP::WebTest will probably do it for us. I'll keep you posted. Stay tuned...