Looking for a simple Internet Connection Monitor

[dawks]

Looking for something, preferably free, that will run on a system, and monitor/log an internet connections uptime. Any suggestions?

I have an internet connection at another location that a user claims is down more than not.. but the ISP claims everything is working fine. I need some technical way to show them otherwise. Plus I'd like some data for myself.

 

[gsaldivar]

pingdom.com has a free account that will monitor one domain for you. They provide monthly uptime reports emailed to you.

 

[JackMDS]

http://www.softperfect.com/products/networx/

 

[dawks]

Yea I came across Networx in my googling, but it just logs bandwidth, doesnt really track uptime.

Pingdom is more along the lines of what I'm looking for though.

 

[ViviTheMage]

pingdom.com has a free account that will monitor one domain for you. They provide monthly uptime reports emailed to you.

This is your best third party option.

http://www.softperfect.com/products/networx/

I wish I could load that on a small server/pc and log ALL traffic that passes through the network.

 

[beckerdave]

Net Uptime Monitor (http://www.netuptimemonitor.com) does just what you want - it continuously checks if your outbound internet connection is working. It's super simple, just install and run it.

If it fails, it alerts you and writes a plain text log with the start time and length of each failure. Present this log to the ISP and you have completely documented every outage.

There's a free trail that limits how long you can monitor the connection. The full version is just $10.

 

[Whiznot]

I've been experiencing daily reconnects and needed a simple way to log downtime.

I paid $10 for Net Uptime Monitor recommended by beckerdave. NUM does what I want and it's very simple but can be configured as to sites pinged and time interval for tests. The time of day and length of outages is logged to a text file.

My computer is on a wired connection to an Asus RT-N66U router. My modem is a Motorola SB6121.

Every five seconds NUM pings Google, Level One and OpenDNS and an outage is reported if all three sites are unreachable for five seconds and an audible tone is generated.

NUM has logged five short duration outages in the last few hours. Four of the outages did not reset the modem uptime on 192.168.100.1. One of the reported outages reset modem uptime but I didn't notice a change in the modem's lights.

I don't think there is a problem with my router or modem but when it's not overly inconvenient I probably need to test with a direct modem connection.

I am left wondering if there has ever been any consumer router firmware that includes the capability to continuously ping sites and generate logs of outages?

 

[gsaldivar]

Every five seconds NUM pings Google, Level One and OpenDNS and an outage is reported if all three sites are unreachable for five seconds and an audible tone is generated.

Every 5 seconds is a very high resolution for ping... I would suggest that you inquire with your ISP regarding uptime monitoring services and refrain from pinging public addresses that frequently.

 

[Whiznot]

Every 5 seconds is a very high resolution for ping... I would suggest that you inquire with your ISP regarding uptime monitoring services and refrain from pinging public addresses that frequently.

I'm sorry but what is the problem with pinging these addresses frequently. When someone uses the ping command with the -t switch there are continuous pings and I've never read that doing so was undesirable.

I frequently read ISP forums where people report connection issues and I am not aware that ISPs offer uptime monitoring services. My ISP, Mediacom, pushes custom modem firmware that actually blocks modem logs and reported uptime. It would appear that if there is an outage that the customer is unaware off, the ISP has no concern.

 

[Mushkins]

I'm sorry but what is the problem with pinging these addresses frequently. When someone uses the ping command with the -t switch there are continuous pings and I've never read that doing so was undesirable.

I frequently read ISP forums where people report connection issues and I am not aware that ISPs offer uptime monitoring services. My ISP, Mediacom, pushes custom modem firmware that actually blocks modem logs and reported uptime. It would appear that if there is an outage that the customer is unaware off, the ISP has no concern.

Ping -t is used as a troubleshooting tool. It's not meant to be used on a public server indefinitely so you can monitor your connectivity uptime.

Remember, the server you're pinging has to take time to *respond* to every one of those pings. Every one of those pings could have taken precedence over someone legitimately making a connection attempt to that server. To put it bluntly, if you get enough people using ping -t on a public server, you've got yourself a DDoS attack.

And yes, most residential ISPs don't give one hoot about uptime. There is no SLA defining a baseline of uptime you're guaranteed to have as a customer. They only respond to service interruptions when a customer complains. The easiest way to accomplish what you want is to simply buy a router that keeps track of WAN uptime.

 

[Whiznot]

Thanks for the reply, Mushkins.

I am only using the uptime monitor as a troubleshooting tool to provide info to my ISP. I know that pinging a DNS consumes some of its resources just like clicking on a new link.

My router is an Asus RT-M66U running Asus firmware. I've previously used Tomato on a WRT54GL. I wasn't aware that either of these firmwares could monitor and log WAN uptime but if they did wouldn't they need to ping?

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[drebo]

I use smokeping for this.