Re: monitoring internet availability and sending sms alert?

[Adam Hardy <adam.ant@cyberspaceroad.com>]

owens@netptc.net on 14/05/10 15:06, wrote:
> > > On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 12:28:54AM +0100, Adam Hardy uttered:
> > > > I figure this is probably something I would have to script myself 
> > > > because I can't find anything useful looking out there, but I thought 
> > > > I'd ask before I try (or perhaps before I procrastinate again):
> > > >
> > > > I have a machine here at home running some 24x5 programs which I really
> > > >  need to keep up and running, along with my broadband so it can get its
> > > > datafeeds.
> > > >
> > > > I figured I could run a program on my webserver to ping my home machine
> > > >  regularly and in case it starts to slow down, lose packets or die
> > > > completely, it could send me an SMS to alert me to the fact.
> > > >
> > > > Is there something like this already in existence?
> > > Not sure as I'm going from memory. Webmin had/has a heartbeat monitor 
> > > plug-in and if memory serves it had a way to notify a phone number, 
> > > e-mail address etc. I assume it's not that important to be SMS 
> > > necessarily?
> > >
> > > Webmin AFAIK is not in Debian anymore; but you can get it upstream or 
> > > perhaps look at the heartbeat application in Debian to see what it has 
> > > for remote notification.
> Isn't this what SNMP was designed for?

There was probably a lot more that it was designed for. Plus one of the first 
things to appear in google:

"Despite its acronym, SNMP is not exactly simple! In fact, it never ceases to 
amaze me how much of a black art implementing and using SNMP"

I don't necessarily want to avoid it, it's just got that 'can-of-worms' sort of 
feel to it and I'm hoping I only need the little script in bash. Or at least I 
did until I realised I'd have to tie ping together with dyndns.org and 
smsclient. Possibly a brainer. I mean, not a no-brainer.