http://medicalfuturist.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/da_Vinci_S_HD_System.jpg
<b>Today I got notified by @pfunk and @clayop (thanks!) that my pricefeed had not been updated in a while. This was the second time in a short period that the pricefeed update script had crashed and it had slipped my mind. Not good.</b> 

Learning more Python I wanted to give it a shot to create a <b><a href="https://github.com/roelandp/witnesshealthcheck">basic monitor script</a></b> which notifies me whenever I had not updated my pricefeed in a while (configurable - and therefore most probably there must be some error). 

Additionally as @gtg <a href="https://steemit.com/witness-category/@gtg/call-for-steem-seed-nodes">recently also noticed</a>, quite some public seednodes had been down and it seemed some witnesses had not noticed that, so I also added basic seednode timeout check too, by utilising Telnet lib inside python.

<b>By using the Telegram API the <b><a href="https://github.com/roelandp/witnesshealthcheck">basic monitor script</a></b> notifies whenever:</b>
1. Your pricefeed has not been updated in a X period of hours
2. Your public seednode is unresponsive / timeout or another error

Usage of the <a href="https://github.com/roelandp/witnesshealthcheck">script</a> requires a Bot on Telegram (<a href="https://www.forsomedefinition.com/automation/creating-telegram-bot-notifications/">read here</a>) and @xeroc's <a href="http://piston.rocks">piston-steem library</a> for python. 

<h3>Setup is pretty straightforward:</h3> 
1. Copy witnesshealthcheck.py over to a server with interwebs and Piston.steem
2. Fill out the `telegram_token` and `telegram_id` variables as well as your `witness` and `seed_node` info.
3. `chmod +x` witnesshealthcheck.py
4. Test the script for example with a very low value for `pricefeed_updatetreshold` (it should notify immediately if you put it to `0`)
5. Put the script inside a regular called (e.g. every 2/4 hours) cronjob.

<h2><a href="https://github.com/roelandp/witnesshealthcheck">Checkout the 'Witness Health Check' script on Github &raquo;</a></h2>

<sup>* image source: http://medicalfuturist.com</sup>

- Open for pull requests!
- Any additional vital signs this witness script should check for? Leave your comments!