Checks for site title, sends email when it does not exist.
There are easier ways to do this, but wanted to use a real browser.
Prereqs:
Java - needed to run the selenium standalone server
Firefox - browser being used
python - needed to run python script
-
Go to http://docs.seleniumhq.org/download/. Go to the section "Selenium Server (formerly the Selenium RC Server)" and download the latest version of selenium server. The file should look something like "selenium-server-standalone-x.xx.x.jar", where x is the version number.
-
Open a terminal and run the selenium server jar file. For example, run the following:
java -jar selenium-server-standalone-x.xx.x.jar -
Open another terminal and run the sitechecker.
"""Takes command line arguments and processes them
-u --url <string> 'http://area515.org'
-t --title <string> 'Des Moines Makerspace'
-f --fromemail <string> '[email protected]'
-p --password <string> 'somebotspassword'
-to --toemail <string> '[email protected]'
-lo --log <string> 'sitechecker-area515.log'
"""
Example scenario. We want to check the site http://area515.org for the title "Des Moines Makerspace". If the site is unavailable, we want to send an email to "[email protected]". We will send this email from a gmail account like, "[email protected]". We also want a log of the everything going on. Our log will be named, "sitechecker-area515.log".
Our example command looks like this:
python sitechecker.py -u 'http://area515.org' -t 'Des Moines Makerspace' -f 'somebot' -p 'sombotspassword' -to '[email protected]' -lo 'sitechecker-area515.log'
(Optional)
- Make sitechecker.py executable. In a terminal, go to the directory that contains "sitechecker.py" and enter the following:
chmod +x ./sitechecker.py
After this you will be able to run the command as follows:
./sitechecker.py -u 'http://area515.org' -t 'Des Moines Makerspace' -f 'somebot' -p 'sombotspassword' -to '[email protected]' -lo 'sitechecker-area515.log'
- Schedule the sitechecker to run every hour (crontab). Run the following:
crontab -e -u youruser
"youruser" is the username you want the command to run as.
At the end of this file, enter:
0 * * * * /home/youruser/sitechecker/sitechecker.py -u 'http://area515.org' -t 'Des Moines Makerspace' -f 'somebot' -p 'sombotspassword' -to '[email protected]' -lo 'sitechecker-area515.log'
Exit and save the file.