xcxcxc / pingpanther

A lightweight website monitoring tool that can run on budget hosts, and notify you via SMS or email when your URL becomes unreachable. Think Nagios or OpenNms, but way smaller. Can run as cgi-script under Apache.

Lightwieght Website Monitoring

A lightwieght alternative to HUGE network monitoring tools such as Nagios or OpenNms. Add URLs and get notified if they are down. Setup takes minutes and runs on most cheap hosts. See a demo.

Email Nofiticaion

Get a email when things go wrong. Email your cell provider (ex. [e-mail]) to get an SMS.

Import/Export

Download your site list in CSV for easy portability.

Password Protection

Keep your setting and sites locked while still allowing other people to see statuses.

Self Contained Python

You will not need any other packages to run Pingpanther. It's fully contained and ready to run from your CGI folder or any budget host.

Open Source

Licensed under GPL 3, and ready for Forking on Github.

Twilio Integration

In case you need a tun of SMS power, we integrated twilio. You should record a freaky robot-y voice to call you really.

Apache Setup

On a cheap host

As long as your hosting provider is running Apache and Python, the following steps will get you up and running:

1. Upload files and CHMOD recursivly to 755

2. Navigate to pingpanther/pingpanther.py

3. Add a cron job through CPANEL/PLESK

   */1 * * * * /home/Gondor/pingpanther/checker.py

Here's video tutorial of getting PingPanther setup on Hostgator.

Standard Apache Server

The very first line of both pingpanther.py and checker.py files should contain path to your python interpreter:

#!/usr/bin/python -u

Sometimes providers have several versions of python installed, then the line may look like

#!/usr/local/bin/python2.6 -u

File permissions

1. Let Python run as CGI script by following these instructions.

2. Set Perms on Checker

You should be able to run checker.py

cd /home/yourname/pingpanther
chmod u+x checker.py

3. Set Perms on pingpanther.py

Web user should be able to run pingpanther.py

cd /usr/lib/cgi-bin (or path to your cgi-bin)
cd pingpanther
chmod a+x pingpanther.py

4. And the DB

Both need to be able to modify pingpanther.db database file.

cd /home/yourname/pingpanther
chmod -R a+rw pingpanther.db

(We are actually setting read and write permissions on the folder that contains the db file).

5. Schedule cron

Run 'crontab -e' to add your cron job. Here's a 1 minute checking example for your cron entry:

*/1 * * * * /home/Gondor/pingpanther/checker.py

Navigate to http://yourhostname.com/cgi-bin/pingpanther/pingpanther.py.