What is Heartbeat Monitor?

Heartbeat Monitor will ping a specified site, every specified amount of minutes and will execute a specified file, upon response failure.
There are 2 main uses to this functionality:

  1. Make sure a specified web site is available and take action if it's not.
  2. Make sure a DSL/Modem connected computer has not lost connectivity, and reconnect if it has.


Samples of both uses are given below.

Download:

  1. Download of the installer.
  2. Download the source.
  3. The application needs .Net Framework 2.0 to run.
  4. The project page on SourceForge.

Usage:

  1. Specify a web site you want to check the availability of.
    If you use the program to validate connectivity, choose an always-online site
    (such as www.google.com or www.cnn.com).
  2. Specify the ping interval in minutes - the site specified above will be pinged after every interval.
  3. Specify the file to be executed in case of a ping failure.
    The file can be either an executable (*.exe) or a batch (*.bat, *.cmd).
  4. An online log is availabe and will show the last 100 (configurable in code) operations taken by the Monitor, including ping response times.

Examples:

  1. If you are an administrator of a web site, running on IIS 5 and above (Windows 2000/XP/2003), you can have a .cmd file contain an IISRESET command, that will eithere reset the IIS services on a local/remote computer, or even reboot the machine.
    For more, see Internet Information Services 5.0 Command-Line Syntax for IISreset.exe.
  2. If your computer is connected to the internet using a phone line, modem, A/DSL router, and it tends to get disconnected due to line/ISP problems, you can re-connect, using the RASPHONE command.
    I use a batch file with RASPHONE -d bezeq (where "bezeq" is my XP dialler to my ISP over ADSL).
    Note: make sure your user name and password are specified in the dialer, or it will just pop a dialog on the screen and wait for you to type them! (not very useful when you're away from the computer :) ).
    For more, see RASPHONE and RASDIAL.
  3. You can include any other executable, or batch logic which will solve the disconnectivity problem.

Screenshots

Heartbeat Monitor running                                         Heartbeat Monitor with the Log Pane open

Future enhancements:

Comments and requests are welcome!
Please send them all to [email protected]