pflammertsma/host-monitor

Host Monitor is a lightweight tool that watches a website or server and tells you whether it is currently online and responding. You run it from a terminal, point it at a domain name, and it keeps checking that host in the background. When something changes, the host goes down or comes back up, it pops up a desktop notification so you know immediately, without having to keep staring at a terminal window. Under the hood, it is a single shell script that repeatedly pings the address you give it. Ping is a basic network utility that sends a small "are you there?" message to a server and waits for a reply. The script loops through this check continuously until you manually stop it. If the target stops responding or starts responding again, the script uses a Linux tool called notify-send to display a system notification on your desktop. This is useful for anyone who needs to keep tabs on a specific server or website over time. For example, if you are waiting for a site to come back online after maintenance, or you want to know the moment your own server stops responding, you can launch this script and go back to other work. The notification will grab your attention the moment the status changes. The project is deliberately minimal. It is written as a straightforward shell script with no complex dependencies, no configuration files, and no setup beyond having notify-send available on your system. The README doesn't go into detail about how frequently it checks or whether you can customize the interval. It is essentially a set-it-and-forget-it utility that does one small job and stays out of your way.