Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

I saw this the other day and thought it was pretty neat.

I'm a little unclear how it works. Does it actually attempt to load a page from the requested site or does it simply log the number of people asking about it and assume that something is down by the volume of requests?

If the 2nd one, I can see how it could be pretty flawed, easily gamed, and only usable with some serious critical mass. (It could also explain the YouTube thing if lots of people are using that to check it out).



I assumed it just requested the '/' with an HTTP request...


Request details: Remote: xvm-189-204.ghst.net (217.70.189.204) Request: HTTP/1.1 HEAD UA: downforeveryoneorjustme.com

Also sets the HTTP_ACCEPT header to /.

No referer or any other header.

Pierre


when i do it to my server i get two "HEAD /" http requests from their ip.


This could be why it shows youtube as down:

curl -I -A "" www.youtube.com

curl -I -A "" www.google.com

I suggest to whoever made that site to put a user agent string in the request.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: