Checking if a website is up via Python

Question

By using python, how can I check if a website is up? From what I read, I need to check the "HTTP HEAD" and see status code "200 OK", but how to do so ?

Answer 1

import httplib
import socket
import re

def is_website_online(host):
    """ This function checks to see if a host name has a DNS entry by checking
        for socket info. If the website gets something in return, 
        we know it's available to DNS.
    """
    try:
        socket.gethostbyname(host)
    except socket.gaierror:
        return False
    else:
        return True


def is_page_available(host, path="/"):
    """ This function retreives the status code of a website by requesting
        HEAD data from the host. This means that it only requests the headers.
        If the host cannot be reached or something else goes wrong, it returns
        False.
    """
    try:
        conn = httplib.HTTPConnection(host)
        conn.request("HEAD", path)
        if re.match("^[23]\d\d$", str(conn.getresponse().status)):
            return True
    except StandardError:
        return None

Answer 2

The HTTPConnection object from the httplib module in the standard library will probably do the trick for you. BTW, if you start doing anything advanced with HTTP in Python, be sure to check out httplib2; it's a great library.