Test if a website is alive from a C# application

c# webrequest
FryHard picture FryHard · Oct 9, 2008 · Viewed 97.4k times · Source

I am looking for the best way to test if a website is alive from a C# application.

Background

My application consists of a Winforms UI, a backend WCF service and a website to publish content to the UI and other consumers. To prevent the situation where the UI starts up and fails to work properly because of a missing WCF service or website being down I have added an app startup check to ensure that all everything is alive.

The application is being written in C#, .NET 3.5, Visual Studio 2008

Current Solution

Currently I am making a web request to a test page on the website that will inturn test the web site and then display a result.

WebRequest request = WebRequest.Create("http://localhost/myContentSite/test.aspx");
WebResponse response = request.GetResponse();

I am assuming that if there are no exceptions thown during this call then all is well and the UI can start.

Question

Is this the simplest, right way or is there some other sneaky call that I don't know about in C# or a better way to do it.

Answer

Echostorm picture Echostorm · Oct 9, 2008 
HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();
if (response == null || response.StatusCode != HttpStatusCode.OK)

As @Yanga mentioned, HttpClient is probably the more common way to do this now.

HttpClient client = new HttpClient();
var checkingResponse = await client.GetAsync(url);
if (!checkingResponse.IsSuccessStatusCode)
{
   return false;
}

Related questions

HttpWebRequest using Basic authentication

I'm trying to go through an authentication request that mimics the "basic auth request" we're used to seeing when setting up IIS for this behavior. The URL is: https://telematicoprova.agenziadogane.it/TelematicoServiziDiUtilitaWeb/ServiziDiUtilitaAutServlet?UC=22&SC=1&ST=2 (warning: …

Read More
How do I use WebRequest to access an SSL encrypted site using https?

I'm writing a program that reads content from a user provided URL. My problem is in the code that goes something like this: Uri uri = new Uri(url); WebRequest webRequest = WebRequest.Create(uri); WebResponse webResponse = webRequest.GetResponse(); ReadFrom(webResponse.GetResponseStream()); …

Read More
Cannot set some HTTP headers when using System.Net.WebRequest

When I try to add a HTTP header key/value pair on a WebRequest object, I get the following exception: This header must be modified using the appropriate property I've tried adding new values to the Headers collection by using …

Read More