The obvious way to use Pingdom is to monitor uptime for websites and servers. It’s extremely easy to set up a check to monitor www.mywebpage.com or an IP address, and this is how most people use Pingdom today.
However, Pingdom is not a one-trick pony. There are a lot of things you can do with the available check options, and the possibilities keep expanding as Pingdom evolves. We have compiled a couple of tips and tricks that can make your use of Pingdom even more efficient.
Use Pingdom for database monitoring.
Set up an unpublished Web page called for example dbtest.php on your site, which executes a script that checks one or more databases and then displays the text “All is ok”. Then set up a Pingdom check to monitor www.mywebpage.com/dbtest.php and check for the required string “All is ok”. Nice, huh? All of a sudden, you can receive an SMS alert directly to your phone when there is a database problem (or the server doesn’t respond at all).
Monitor Telnet and SSH connectivity.
If you rely on your server administrators being able to log in remotely via Telnet or SSH to access your site, it might be worth monitoring these ports (port 23 for Telnet and port 22 for SSH). That way you will get an early heads up on any connectivity problems, so you know you are not locked out when there really is a problem that requires your immediate attention.
We hope these examples give you some ideas and perhaps some inspiration for how Pingdom can be used.
We are thinking about making “Pingdom tips and tricks” a recurring feature. Please let us know what you think, including any suggestions for what to include in the future. Email royal AT pingdom DOT com. We are all ears.
