can you recommend a plan of attack?

Anon

I have been charged by my manager to create a dynamically created status page for our servers. I currently have a manually-edited table which has server name, status (colour-coded via CSS), last updated and comments (similar to www.bb4.com but more manager- friendly).
They want a form that anyone with access can select server and status from a dropdown form which will automatically update that server's status / colour on the server list page.
Can anyone recommend the best way to go about this, or is it even possible with php? It takes me all of ten seconds to manually update the page but they want a backup in place should I be out or whatever.
Hopefully that made sense...
Thanks for your time!

Anon

It's much easier if you use COM in conjunction with your server. I'm assuming you may be using W2K. If you are try WSH scripting

greg252

If the page is dynamically generated by the results of some sort of test being performed by the server on the server, why would you EVER be manually changing the status of the server?

Yes, it can be done in PHP. If you are tracking serveral servers, I would set up a database (it's easier to update and sort-in my opinion) with 2 tables: server_info and status. Use conditionals to determine the status of the server. record in the server_info table value from status...Use server_info and status tables to generate Drop Down Menus.

All can be done.

Anon

I usd BB4 as an example of the type of information generated; none of the servers are actually queried. The current page is not dynamically generated.
Additionally, the status page consists of both servers and applications (which aren't queried).
The pages are manually updated in the event of a planned downtime, i.e. patch application, maintenance, etc.
The test environment is apache on w2k; most of our servers are hp/ux. The only server I have direct control over is the w2k web server. I do not, nor can I get, access to any of the other servers (i'm a lowly analyst and not an important Developer or Administrator). Otherwise I'd just install BB and have done with it.
Thanks again for the help!