A Web Site Availability Check Script for Nagios

Abstract

In this chapter we are going to build a custom check script for one of the standard NMS (network monitoring systems) available today—Nagios. We will be monitoring a simple web site by using an HTML parsing library, which allows us to check the operational side of the site. The check script attempts to navigate through unsecured pages and then reach some protected pages, too, by simulating a user login action. All action will be recorded and fed back into the Nagios system, which can be configured to do reporting and alerting if required.