Todd Snyder(todd@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