[Twisted-Python] How Twisted is This?

[Ivo van der Wijk]

On Wed, Jul 16, 2003 at 11:25:20AM -0400, Brad Bollenbach wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm evaluating Twisted for the networking component of a web server
> monitoring service. Eventually, this service will support monitoring
> pretty much any TCP-enabled device. 
> 
> I want to figure out whether Twisted is applicable to my problem.
> 
> This web monitoring system will be:
> 
> * branded for the company I work for 
> 
> * multiuser 
> 
> * offer various ways of verifying the uptime and integrity of content on
> a site:
> 
>     i. Can I open an HTTP connection to this site?
>     ii. Is "foo bar" present on the page that I've retrieved?
>     iii. Is the page I've retrieved the same size as it was before?
>     iv. Is Basic Auth still working with this username/password? (for
>     pages that do Basic Auth, of course :)
> 

I've written a HTTP watchdog using Twisted that does something like this:

- can I connect
- can I HEAD / and get a result
- does all of this happen in the correct time interval

The watchdog resets the service if it is not responding, and keeps track
of some statistics to avoid continuous restarting.

> ...and so forth.
> 
> So, my main use case (possibly) relevant to Twisted would be:
> 
> I write a "monicron". monicron wakes up every five minutes and asks the
> system "are there any monitors that need to be performed right now?" The
> answer will either be "Yes, here's the monitors that need to be
> performed right now" or "No".
> 
> If No, monicron will just go back to bed for another five minutes.
> 
> If the answer is Yes monicron will gather the monitors that need to be
> run, and execute the all at once -- asyncronously. It would then need to
> collect the results of all the monitors, and once they've all reported
> back for a given site, send an error report if something went wrong.
> 
> 1. Does this sound Twisted?
> 

Somewhat. You need to make very sure your system doesn't block unexpectedly :)

> 2. If Yes, where should I start looking for the bits of the framework
> that will make my task as easy as possible?
> 

I have a rather ugly Twisted script which might give you a start (it does the 
checking at intervals, gathering results / setting timeouts, etc).

If you're interested, I could try to cleanup the code a bit.

Cheers

	Ivo

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