Todd Snyder(t...@borked.ca)@Mon, Apr 02, 2012 at 12:08:06PM -0400: > Good day all, > > There have been a few instances where we've wanted to check our external > DNS servers from various external networks, so we've utilized the existing > looking glass tools provided by many of you. However, it's a very manual > process, given that all LG's I've found say no automating/scripting. If we > want to check from a couple dozen sites around the world, it's a lot of > clicking and typing and collecting. If we wanted to create an tool that > our NOC could use to verify our services, we would need something we could > script. Ideally, we'd be able to run this constantly to do health checks > on our services, but one step at a time.
To suggest a service that I have no relation to (other than being a happy customer), have you looked at Pingdom [http://www.pingdom.com/] ? I'm not using the DNS check type, but I have a dozen or so HTTP checks there. Their system is super simple, no frills, and is priced like it :) It looks like you can list a domain to test, a server to check and what result you expect. They run checks from a bunch of different places (40 servers, seemingly half in the US, right now). Pricing at the low scale is $6/check/year, which is pretty compelling even against running some VPSes if you aren't checking too many sites. -- Bill Weiss
