how to check a server is up?

Anon

Hi there,

I've been trying to write a function to check whether a server is up or not, and redirect the user to another randomly chosen server if it isn't.

I'm checking the server's activity with fsockopen, but there is a problem: although I pass a timeout argument in fsocketopen(), it ignores it and the script times out after the default 30 seconds.

I'm using PHP 4.03pl1 with IIS 4 on NT. My function call looks like this:
$fp = fsockopen ($hostname, 80, $errno, $errstr, $timeout);

any ideas?

Thanks

Anon

If you're trying to set a socket timeout longer than the script timeout, the script will timeout first. You should be able to set the script timeout longer, too-- see set_time_limit().

Anon

check out the max_execution_time in your php.ini file and set it as you wish.

Anon

My php.ini timeout defaults to 30 seconds, but I want my function to time out after four seconds.

After further testing, I realised that if the IP address cannot be found, fsockopen() hangs, but if the IP address is found AND the server on that machine is dead, THEN the function works properly.

I suppose it's not a big problem since I know exactly which IP addresses I have at disposal, but it's certainly something the PHP developers should look at!

Thanks.