Question

how to get the status of a remote server?

Asked by: akohan


hello group,

In part of my website I'm using a third part service when user can click on a link and login to it. Sometimes the service goes down and I need to show a notification showing the status of a the service.
either it is down or up and running.

Thinking to write a script using C# or VB.NET for this matter. can somebody give me some hints on this ?

Regards,
ak


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Asked On
2009-07-20 at 10:36:54ID24584848
Tags

C#

,

VB.NET

,

ASP.NET

,

Windows Server

Topics

C# Programming Language

,

Microsoft Visual Basic.Net

,

Microsoft Visual C#.Net

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
11

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Answers

 

by: jimbobmcgeePosted on 2009-07-20 at 11:04:42ID: 24897405

The easiest way I can think of is just to try to use one of the methods of the web service and catch an exception or query its result.  Pick a non-destructive method to call and wrap it in a try/catch block.

If its a regularly-called service, you may want to cache the result for a few mins between calls...

try
{
    MyWebService mws = new MyWebService();
    mws.SafeMethod();
}
catch
{
    statusLabel.Text = "The web service is unavailable";
}

                                              
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by: akohanPosted on 2009-07-20 at 11:07:24ID: 24897427



Thanks for your response. I'm a little confused here. What is MyWebService in your code? would you please give me some insight into this?

Regards.

 

by: akohanPosted on 2009-07-20 at 11:09:01ID: 24897439


One thing I had to explain that currently I'm not using any C# or VB.NET code. the website is just a few pages made of html/css.

There is a link in one of the pages that people can click and get to a service. I need to check their domain periodically and return a status.

 

by: jimbobmcgeePosted on 2009-07-20 at 11:33:08ID: 24897627

Sorry, I was assuming an ASP.NET site consuming a third-party WSDL web service.  Maybe you need to explain a little clearer:

  -  do you have an ASP.NET website in place?
  -  what is the web service that you are trying to consume?

>> There is a link in one of the pages that people can click and get to a service
A link to what?  Another web site?

J.

 

by: akohanPosted on 2009-07-20 at 12:10:06ID: 24897968




>>  do you have an ASP.NET website in place?
>>  what is the web service that you are trying to consume?

OK, consider having a regular website only made of HTML, CSS and ... but runs in IIS. It has a link to a third party online site as Blackboard.

I can use ASP.NET on my server and the web application I'm using is Blackboard.

Regards.


 

by: jimbobmcgeePosted on 2009-07-20 at 12:32:40ID: 24898177

If you're not using ASP.NET currently, you'll need to do this in client script.  You m,ay want to ask the guys in the JavaScript area to be sure, but you may be able to do this by embedding a hidden image or iframe on your page and binding a JS function to its onerror event property:

<html>
  <head>
    <script type="text/javascript">
      function BlackboardDown() { 
        window.alert('Blackboard is down'); return false; 
      }
    </script>
  </head>
  <body>
    <img style="display:none" src="http://www.blackboard.com/includes/images/master/logo.gif" onerror="javascript:return BlackboardDown();" />
  </body>
</html>

                                              
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by: akohanPosted on 2009-07-20 at 12:47:36ID: 24898318


Thank you, it. Would you please tell me how I can do it using ASP.NET?

regards.

 

by: CodeCruiserPosted on 2009-07-21 at 03:18:45ID: 24902782

Hi,
You can use a HTTPRequest to request a page from the website. If the page is retrieved successfully then the site is up otherwise its not accessible.

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/Browsing_the_WEB_with_C_.aspx

 

by: jimbobmcgeePosted on 2009-07-21 at 04:42:57ID: 24903336

Assuming a familiarity with ASP.NET, you'll have a Page, with a Page_Load method.  

You use the HttpWebRequest and HttpWebResponse objects to try to connect to a known page in the site.  If the HttpWebResponse's Status is not 200, or a WebException is thrown, the site is down.

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    const string UP = "The Blackboard website is available",
                 DOWN = "The Blackboard website is down";
    try
    {
        const string URL = "http://www.blackboard.com/";
        HttpWebRequest req = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(URL);
        HttpWebResponse resp = (HttpWebResponse).GetResponse();
 
        statusLabel.Text = (resp.StatusCode == HttpStatusCode.OK) ? UP : DOWN;
    }
    catch (WebException)
    {
        statusLabel.Text = DOWN;
    }
}

                                              
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by: akohanPosted on 2009-08-13 at 15:12:13ID: 25093566


Can't I choose a 2 answers?! I see only one link as "accept"

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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