awen: Website Downtime Notifier

A simple, backend-only Node.js package to monitor a specific website for downtime. If the site becomes unreachable, it sends a notification using the Pushbullet service.

Features

• Continuous Monitoring: Periodically checks a target URL to ensure it's online.

• Stateful Notifications: Sends a notification only when the site's status changes (i.e., when it first goes down and when it first comes back up) to avoid spam.

• Pushbullet Integration: Leverages Pushbullet for reliable push notifications to your devices.

• Flexible Configuration: Configure via command-line arguments or environment variables.

• Lightweight: No front-end, designed to run as a background service.

Setup

1. Prerequisites

• Node.js (v14 or later)

• A Pushbullet account

2. Installation

Clone or download the package files, then navigate into the directory and install the dependencies:

npm install

3. Get Your Pushbullet API Key

1. Go to your Pushbullet Account Settings page: https://www.pushbullet.com/#settings/account

2. Scroll down to "Access Tokens" and click "Create Access Token".

3. Copy this token. This is your API key.

4. Configuration

You can configure the notifier in two ways. Command-line arguments will always override environment variables.

Method 1: Command-Line Arguments (Recommended for flexibility)

You can pass configuration directly when you run the script.

--url: The website to watch.

--apiKey: Your Pushbullet API key.

--interval: (Optional) The check interval in milliseconds.

Example:

node index.js --url="https://example.com" --apiKey="o.YOUR_API_KEY_HERE" --interval=60000

Method 2: Environment Variables (.env file)

Create a file named .env in the root of the project directory.

Now, open the .env file and fill in the required values. These will be used if no corresponding command-line arguments are provided.

# Your Pushbullet API key from your account settings
PUSHBULLET_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY_HERE"

# The full URL of the website you want to monitor
URL_TO_WATCH="https://example.com"

# (Optional) The time between checks in milliseconds. Defaults to 5 minutes (300000).
CHECK_INTERVAL_MS="300000"

Usage

As a Standalone Service

Once configured, you can start the monitoring script directly from your terminal.

Using .env file:

npm start

Using command-line arguments:

node index.js --url="https://example.com" --apiKey="o.YOUR_KEY"

For long-term use, you should run this script with a process manager like pm2 to ensure it runs continuously in the background.

Example with pm2:

# Install pm2 globally
npm install pm2 -g

# Start the notifier with pm2, passing arguments
pm2 start index.js --name "website-monitor" --url="https://example.com" --apiKey="o.YOUR_KEY"

As a Library

You can also integrate the monitoring logic into your own Node.js application.

const { startMonitoring } = require('./index');

// Note: The Pushbullet API key must be set as an environment variable
// or passed directly to the startMonitoring function if you modify it.
startMonitoring('https://example.com', 60000);