Website Checker — How-To Guide

Prerequisites: Setup complete (see SETUP.md). requests installed. Internet connection active.

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Table of Contents

1. How to Check if a Website is Up
2. How to Check an SSL Certificate
3. How to Monitor Multiple Sites at Once
4. How to Check a Slow or Unreliable Site
5. How to Verify a Redirect is Working
6. Automating with Cron
7. Combining with Other Skills
8. Troubleshooting Common Issues
9. Tips & Best Practices

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1. How to Check if a Website is Up

What this does: Makes an HTTP GET request to the URL and reports the response status and time.

When to use it: After a deployment, when a user reports your site is down, or as a quick sanity check.

Steps

Step 1 — Navigate to the skill directory.

cd ~/smfworks-skills/skills/website-checker

Step 2 — Run the check command.

python3 main.py check https://yourwebsite.com

Output (site is up):

✅ https://yourwebsite.com
   Status: 200
   Response time: 243.17ms

Output (site is down):

❌ Failed to check https://yourwebsite.com
   Error: Request failed: ConnectionError: HTTPSConnectionPool(host='yourwebsite.com', port=443): Max retries exceeded

Step 3 — Interpret the status code.

Status Code	Meaning
200	Site is up and working normally
301/302	Redirect — the skill follows it and shows the final URL
403	Forbidden — site is up but this URL requires authentication
404	Page not found — site is up but the URL is wrong
500–503	Server error — site is up but something is broken on it

Result: You know definitively whether the site is reachable and what it returned.

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2. How to Check an SSL Certificate

What this does: Connects to a domain over SSL and reports the certificate's issuer, expiration date, days remaining, and TLS version.

When to use it: Before your certificate expires (Let's Encrypt certificates expire every 90 days). Or when users report browser security warnings.

Steps

Step 1 — Navigate to the skill directory.

cd ~/smfworks-skills/skills/website-checker

Step 2 — Run the ssl command.

Important: Pass only the domain name, not the full URL.

python3 main.py ssl yourwebsite.com

Output (certificate is healthy):

✅ SSL Certificate: yourwebsite.com
   Issuer: ((('organizationName', "Let's Encrypt"),),)
   Expires: Jun 14 12:00:00 2024 GMT
   Days until expiry: 91
   TLS Version: TLSv1.3

Output (expiring in 10 days — warning):

⚠️ SSL Certificate: yourwebsite.com
   Issuer: ((('organizationName', "Let's Encrypt"),),)
   Expires: Mar 25 12:00:00 2024 GMT
   Days until expiry: 10
   TLS Version: TLSv1.3

Step 3 — Act on the result.

• 91+ days: No action needed
• 10–29 days: Schedule renewal this week
• Under 7 days: Renew immediately — browsers will show security warnings when it expires

Step 4 — For non-standard ports (e.g., internal services):

python3 main.py ssl internal-service.example.com 8443

Result: You have the certificate status and exact expiry date — no need to dig through hosting dashboards.

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3. How to Monitor Multiple Sites at Once

What this does: Checks a list of URLs in sequence and prints one status line per URL.

When to use it: You manage multiple websites for clients or internal services and need a quick overview of all of them.

Steps

Step 1 — Navigate to the skill directory.

cd ~/smfworks-skills/skills/website-checker

Step 2 — Run bulk with your sites.

python3 main.py bulk https://client1.com https://client2.com https://client3.com https://my-api.example.com

Output:

Checking 4 URLs...

✅ https://client1.com - 200 (143ms)
✅ https://client2.com - 200 (287ms)
⚠️ https://client3.com - 403 (88ms)
❌ https://my-api.example.com - DOWN (Request failed: ConnectionError: ...)

Step 3 — Investigate the ones that aren't 200.

A 403 may be expected (protected endpoint). A DOWN needs investigation.

Step 4 — Save your site list for easy reuse.

Create a shell alias or script:

# Add to ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc
alias check-all-sites='python3 ~/smfworks-skills/skills/website-checker/main.py bulk https://client1.com https://client2.com https://client3.com'

Result: Full status overview in one command.

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4. How to Check a Slow or Unreliable Site

What this does: Uses a longer timeout for sites that normally take more than 10 seconds to respond.

When to use it: The default check returns a timeout error for a site you know is sometimes just slow.

Steps

Step 1 — Try with default timeout first.

python3 main.py check https://slow-api.example.com

Output:

❌ Failed to check https://slow-api.example.com
   Error: Request failed: ReadTimeout: HTTPSConnectionPool(host='slow-api.example.com', port=443): Read timed out. (read timeout=10)

Step 2 — Retry with a longer timeout.

python3 main.py check https://slow-api.example.com --timeout 60

Output:

✅ https://slow-api.example.com
   Status: 200
   Response time: 34,821.43ms

Step 3 — Interpret the result.

34 seconds is extremely slow. This is either a performance problem worth investigating or expected for that endpoint.

Result: You confirmed the site is up, just slow, and measured exactly how slow.

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5. How to Verify a Redirect is Working

What this does: When you redirect http:// to https:// or an old domain to a new one, this confirms the redirect is in place.

When to use it: After setting up a domain redirect, changing your site URL, or migrating to HTTPS.

Steps

Step 1 — Check the old URL.

python3 main.py check http://old-domain.com

Output (redirect working):

✅ http://old-domain.com
   Status: 200
   Response time: 312.55ms
   Redirected to: https://www.new-domain.com/

Output (redirect not set up):

✅ http://old-domain.com
   Status: 200
   Response time: 89.12ms

(No "Redirected to" line means no redirect happened.)

Result: The "Redirected to" line confirms the redirect is working correctly.

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6. Automating with Cron

Schedule regular site checks and log results. Review the log for downtime history.

Open the cron editor

crontab -e

Example: Check your main site every 30 minutes

*/30 * * * * python3 /home/yourname/smfworks-skills/skills/website-checker/main.py check https://yoursite.com >> /home/yourname/logs/site-check.log 2>&1

Example: Check SSL certificate every morning

0 8 * * * python3 /home/yourname/smfworks-skills/skills/website-checker/main.py ssl yoursite.com >> /home/yourname/logs/ssl-check.log 2>&1

Example: Check all client sites every hour

0 * * * * python3 /home/yourname/smfworks-skills/skills/website-checker/main.py bulk https://client1.com https://client2.com https://client3.com >> /home/yourname/logs/bulk-check.log 2>&1

Cron Expression Reference

Expression	Meaning
*/30 * * * *	Every 30 minutes
0 * * * *	Every hour at :00
0 8 * * *	Every day at 8 AM
0 8 * * 1	Every Monday at 8 AM

Create the log directory

mkdir -p ~/logs

Check for downtime in logs

grep "❌" ~/logs/site-check.log | tail -20

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7. Combining with Other Skills

Website Checker + Email Campaign: Check that your landing page is up before sending a campaign:

python3 ~/smfworks-skills/skills/website-checker/main.py check https://landing-page.com
# If ✅, proceed with campaign

Website Checker + System Monitor: Morning routine script — check both system health and site status:

#!/bin/bash
python3 ~/smfworks-skills/skills/system-monitor/main.py health
python3 ~/smfworks-skills/skills/website-checker/main.py bulk https://site1.com https://site2.com

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8. Troubleshooting Common Issues

requests not installed. Run: pip install requests

The package is missing.
Fix: pip install requests

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Request failed: ConnectionError: Max retries exceeded

The site is unreachable from your network.
Fix: 1) Confirm you have internet access. 2) Try opening the URL in a browser. 3) Check DNS: nslookup yourdomain.com.

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Request failed: ReadTimeout: Read timed out. (read timeout=10)

The site didn't respond within 10 seconds.
Fix: Try with a longer timeout: --timeout 30. If still failing, the site is very slow or overloaded.

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SSL Error: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED

The site's SSL certificate is invalid, expired, or self-signed.
Fix: If it's your site, renew the certificate immediately. If it's someone else's, they have an SSL problem.

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SSRF Protection: Access to localhost is not allowed

You tried to check http://localhost or a private IP address.
Fix: This is intentional security protection. The skill only checks public internet URLs.

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Error: bulk requires at least 2 URLs

You used bulk with only one URL.
Fix: Use check for a single URL. Use bulk when you have two or more.

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9. Tips & Best Practices

Check SSL monthly for all production sites. Let's Encrypt certificates expire every 90 days. A monthly check gives you ample warning. At 30 days or less, renew immediately.

Use bulk for regular monitoring. Build a list of your critical URLs and run bulk daily via cron. Review the log periodically for patterns.

A 403 doesn't mean the site is down. HTTP 403 (Forbidden) means the server responded — it's up — but this particular endpoint requires authentication. This is often expected.

Response times over 2,000ms are worth investigating. Sub-200ms is great. 200–1000ms is normal. Over 2000ms is slow enough to hurt user experience and bounce rates.

Use absolute paths in cron. Cron doesn't expand ~. Use /home/yourname/ instead of ~/ in crontab entries.

Save your bulk URL list as a script. If you check the same sites repeatedly, create a short shell script instead of retyping the URLs:

#!/bin/bash
python3 ~/smfworks-skills/skills/website-checker/main.py bulk \
  https://site1.com \
  https://site2.com \
  https://site3.com