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An Alternate Method of Testing Web Site Availability

By Will Bontrager

Sometimes it happens, a web site isn't available. You know it should be there, but your browser doesn't find it.

Reasons vary from IP being blocked to very busy server at the other end to parts of the Internet infrastructure being in trouble.

If the IP address of your web site is different than the IP address you use when you're surfing and/or your web site server is in a different geographical location than the ISP you're using, both of which are probably the case for most of us, then you might check if the web page can be accessed from your server.

Here are two methods, PHP and CGI.

PHP — put the following three lines on a web page with a .php file name extension, then type its URL into your browser.

<?php include 'http://example.com'; ?>

Change the url http://example.com to the URL of the web page you're trying to reach.

CGI — install it into a directory allowed to run Perl CGI programs, then type its URL into your browser.

#!/usr/bin/perl use LWP::Simple; print "Content-type: text/html\n\n"; getprint 'http://example.com';

Change the url http://example.com to the URL of the web page you're trying to reach.

Relative href=/src= URLs in the web page may be broken when obtained with either of the above methods. But at least you'll know whether or not it's your normal surfing IP address (or ISP location) that's the problem.

October 16, 2005

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