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

Requests and httplib2 are great options:

# Using requests.
import requests
request = requests.get(value)
if request.status_code == 200:
    return True
return False

# Using httplib2.
import httplib2

try:
    http = httplib2.Http()
    response = http.request(value, 'HEAD')

    if int(response[0]['status']) == 200:
        return True
except:
    pass
return False

If using Ansible, you can use the fetch_url function:

from ansible.module_utils.basic import AnsibleModule
from ansible.module_utils.urls import fetch_url

module = AnsibleModule(
    dict(),
    supports_check_mode=True)

try:
    response, info = fetch_url(module, url)
    if info['status'] == 200:
        return True

except Exception:
    pass

return False