Watching a website for periodic outages

[Glen Holcomb]

I'm needing to monitor a web application for periodic outages and log the
duration.

I originally tried this with SafariWatir as the login is javascript so I
can't use Mechanize. However Watir seems to give up if the page takes
longer than 10 seconds to load, normally I would just catch this error and
retry until successful. However after running for a little while the
browser seems to hang up, I can reach the app from another browser. Plus
the documentation for SafariWatir seems to be non-existant.

Can anyone think of a better way to do this? Or point me to some
SafariWatir documentation? What ever I use needs to be able to handle
Javascript and cookies.

--=20
"Hey brother Christian with your high and mighty errand, Your actions speak
so loud, I can=92t hear a word you=92re saying."

-Greg Graffin (Bad Religion)

 

[Kyle Smith]

I'm needing to monitor a web application for periodic outages and log the
duration.

I originally tried this with SafariWatir as the login is javascript so I
can't use Mechanize. However Watir seems to give up if the page takes
longer than 10 seconds to load, normally I would just catch this error and
retry until successful. However after running for a little while the
browser seems to hang up, I can reach the app from another browser. Plus
the documentation for SafariWatir seems to be non-existant.

Can anyone think of a better way to do this? Or point me to some
SafariWatir documentation? What ever I use needs to be able to handle
Javascript and cookies.

Sounds like you're looking for a monitoring solution like Nagios or Zenoss,
which would keep historic data of the status of the site, and produce
alerts when it's unavailable.

- Kyle

 

[Kyle Schmitt]

I'm needing to monitor a web application for periodic outages and log the
duration.

I originally tried this with SafariWatir as the login is javascript so I
can't use Mechanize. =C2=A0However Watir seems to give up if the page tak=

es

Other than using a monitoring package like Zenoss or Natgios like Kyle said=
?
Sure, you could use the ruby HTTP classes.
http://ruby-doc.org/stdlib/libdoc/net/http/rdoc/classes/Net/HTTP.html

Read the examples, they will prettymuch show you exactly what you need
to do to get a page. The read more to learn how to set your timeout,
etc.

Put it in a loop, catch the exceptions, toss it in a log file with
stuff like log4r, or just plain old file output.

Enjoy!
--Kyle

 

[Kyle Schmitt]

Sounds like you're looking for a monitoring solution like Nagios or Zenoss,
which would keep historic data of the status of the site, and produce
alerts when it's unavailable.

- Kyle

Damnit, this is going to get confusing.

--Kyle

 

[Kyle Schmitt]

Can anyone think of a better way to do this? =C2=A0Or point me to some
SafariWatir documentation? =C2=A0What ever I use needs to be able to hand= le
Javascript and cookies.

OK, re-read. _Why_ does it need to handle javascript and cookies?

To monitor if it's up and responding, you really only need to get
straight http, check that you didn't get an error code (401 404 etc),
and parse the resulting html to make sure it's not an error message
from your application.

Now, if you really need something that will handle cookies, and do
logins etc (but not javascript), you_could_ use JMeter, but it's
probably overkill to use it just to see if a site is up...

 

[Glen Holcomb]

OK, re-read. _Why_ does it need to handle javascript and cookies?

To monitor if it's up and responding, you really only need to get
straight http, check that you didn't get an error code (401 404 etc),
and parse the resulting html to make sure it's not an error message
from your application.

Now, if you really need something that will handle cookies, and do
logins etc (but not javascript), you_could_ use JMeter, but it's
probably overkill to use it just to see if a site is up...

The problem is this:

We have an application that is misbehaving, and despite paying for support
from the vendor we don't actually recieve "support" from the vendor. The
application is serving static content all the time without issue. However
at certain (random) times it will hang when you request anything that isn't
static content. The login page is the only page that is entirely static.

So unfortunately you need to be attempting to log in or already logged in
and requesting "internal" content to notice the issue. Basically I'm
wanting to log when these are occuring and how long they last so we can be
more selective when looking for the cause.

I tried Watir but after a while of clicking on links inside the app Safari
hangs. I was looking at Selenium but the gem didn't seem to install all th=
e
required files.

I need javascript because the vendor decided that the login form should be
javascript so that that one frame can be SSL encrypted while leaving the
rest of the content clear, to increase performance under high load I guess.

I was looking for a Ruby way to get into the app and once there make sure
responses are timely, if not I wanted to log the interval of discontent.

--=20
"Hey brother Christian with your high and mighty errand, Your actions speak
so loud, I can=92t hear a word you=92re saying."

-Greg Graffin (Bad Religion)

 

[Kyle Schmitt]

Try recording and tweaking a JMeter script. It may just work (after a
fashion) without the javascript bits, as long as it's on when you do
the initial recording.

Humm... That becomes difficult.

 

[Glen Holcomb]

Try recording and tweaking a JMeter script. It may just work (after a
fashion) without the javascript bits, as long as it's on when you do
the initial recording.

Humm... That becomes difficult.

Yeah, I was kind of hoping it would be a lot easier than it seems to be.
Watir doesn't seem to be the answer at all. I just noticed a "pause" and
started my Watir script up. It logs in but after about 10 seconds it tries
to click a link despite my explicit instructions not to until content has
loaded. At least I thought they were explicit instructions.

def check_page
loaded =3D false

while !loaded
if (@last_link =3D=3D "Employees" and @browser.linktext, "Tax Forms")=
) or
(@last_link =3D=3D "Welcome" and @browser.linktext, "Alternative
Transportation"))
check_load_time
loaded =3D true
end
sleep 15
end
end

It seems to get out of this loop somehow without content loading. That or
Watir gets content but the browser never renders the content.

--=20
"Hey brother Christian with your high and mighty errand, Your actions speak
so loud, I can=92t hear a word you=92re saying."

-Greg Graffin (Bad Religion)

 

[Xavier Noria]

Yeah, I was kind of hoping it would be a lot easier than it seems to be.
Watir doesn't seem to be the answer at all. =C2=A0I just noticed a "pause= " and
started my Watir script up. =C2=A0It logs in but after about 10 seconds i= t tries
to click a link despite my explicit instructions not to until content has
loaded. =C2=A0At least I thought they were explicit instructions.

def check_page
=C2=A0loaded =3D false

=C2=A0while !loaded
=C2=A0 =C2=A0if (@last_link =3D=3D "Employees" and @browser.linktext, "= Tax Forms")) or
(@last_link =3D=3D "Welcome" and @browser.linktext, "Alternative
Transportation"))
=C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0check_load_time
=C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0loaded =3D true
=C2=A0 =C2=A0end
=C2=A0 =C2=A0sleep 15
=C2=A0end
end

It seems to get out of this loop somehow without content loading. =C2=A0T= hat or
Watir gets content but the browser never renders the content.

--
"Hey brother Christian with your high and mighty errand, Your actions spe= ak
so loud, I can=E2=80=99t hear a word you=E2=80=99re saying."

-Greg Graffin (Bad Religion)

 

[Richard Conroy]

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

I tried Watir but after a while of clicking on links inside the app Safari
hangs. I was looking at Selenium but the gem didn't seem to install all
the
required files.

I need javascript because the vendor decided that the login form should be
javascript so that that one frame can be SSL encrypted while leaving the
rest of the content clear, to increase performance under high load I guess.

You could try using Celerity, which is a JRuby equivalent for Watir. In most
cases it
should be API compatible with Watir, but it is based on HttpUnit (a pure
Java HTTP
client for testing) instead of automating a browser.

Its faster than Watir, and likely to be much less memory intensive. It also
has a built
in JavaScript interpreter (Rhino), and has some special features for working
with
SSL enabled sites (its easy to set it up not to verify - under Watir this
behaviour
is not within API control).

As its JRuby, you might get better luck having these processes work for
extended
periods, which might fit your use case better.

regards,
Richard

 

[Xavier Noria]

Sorry guys, I accidentally pushed reply or something.

 

[Mark Thomas]

 I just noticed a "pause" and
started my Watir script up.  It logs in but after about 10 seconds it tries
to click a link despite my explicit instructions not to until content has
loaded.  At least I thought they were explicit instructions.

They're not explicit instructions. You're merely testing for the value
of @last_link. If @last_link is available, you're executing
@browser.link which follows the link. If you want explicit, use
@browser.wait().

-- Mark.

 

[Glen Holcomb]

They're not explicit instructions. You're merely testing for the value
of @last_link. If @last_link is available, you're executing
@browser.link which follows the link. If you want explicit, use
@browser.wait().

-- Mark.

Hmmm...

@browser.wait() gives me the following error:

undefined method `wait' for #<Watir::Safari:0x1213184> (NoMethodError)

It would appear I can't do that with SafariWatir

--=20
"Hey brother Christian with your high and mighty errand, Your actions speak
so loud, I can=92t hear a word you=92re saying."

-Greg Graffin (Bad Religion)

 

[Glen Holcomb]

They're not explicit instructions. You're merely testing for the value
of @last_link. If @last_link is available, you're executing
@browser.link which follows the link. If you want explicit, use
@browser.wait().

-- Mark.

Also, I was under the impression that @browser.linktext, "link_name")
would only return true if that could be found on the page. Is that the
wrong thing to expect?

--=20
"Hey brother Christian with your high and mighty errand, Your actions speak
so loud, I can=92t hear a word you=92re saying."

-Greg Graffin (Bad Religion)