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RE: Lessons learned from failing as a witness
Hey. Some time ago I was actually thinking about a way to help witnesses and other Steem app developers get informed whenever there are issues with their servers (downtime/functionality etc.) when they aren't online. It would eventually imply a phone call with a prerecorded message to be placed to the owner of the witness/app and the trigger would be from one of the other witnesses to avoid sibyls.
What I though of obviously preserves privacy and ensures a transparent flow to trigger a call to the affected owner. It would also be offered for free.
As much as we'd want, you can't be on 24/7 or even forecast issues.
Would something like this be of interest to you as a witness?
A twillio sms would be preferable to a phone call. Also, if its something running on the server, it has to be open-source.
I've implemented something like this for my trading platform tymoraPRO that gives alerts and warnings whenever any network line, service, or datafeed goes down or doesn't check in within the designated amount of time. At that point, my server-monitor app sends an alert to prowlapp that immediately pops up on my mobile device (better than SMS, since you can include more information if necessary, and without potential SMS fees either). Of course, you could also easily link twillio as well (and/or), as I recall the twillio API is pretty similar and straight-forward.
https://www.prowlapp.com/
API: https://www.prowlapp.com/api.php
If you really want to go all the way with this, here are a few other open source projects that may already do most of the work for you and provide potentially much more robust (albeit more weighty) solutions as well:
libraries:
https://github.com/uniqush/uniqush-push
https://github.com/jreese/znc-push
complete systems:
https://github.com/huginn/huginn
https://github.com/Netflix/Hystrix
https://github.com/OpenNMS/opennms
If you need any help setting something up, let me know, I'd be happy to assist where I can.
this is a great idea and some of the witnesses might want to implement it. The idea i had in mind had zero tech overhead for their servers as it would rely on other humans triggering the alert through the steem blockchain
That aspect could relatively easily be incorporated as well, though you're still talking some tech overhead. You still need the monitor app or script that triggers the SMS, even if it's triggered by humans. But you do bring up an interesting point. Technically, the same app could monitor as many witnesses who'd also like their servers monitored for either discrepancies or outages, etc. as well.
It would definitely be open source and fully transparent in its process. Option for SMS instead of phone call is also an option. The idea of a phone call is that you can ignore a text when you're sleeping generally. It would buzz just like when you received an email.
Also, the idea of a phone call is that you can get a burner number, register that one with my app, and get it redirected to your real number without exposing that one to anyone.
It also depends on everyone's priorities, maybe someone doesn't want to be awaken by a particular app being down :) and would prefer to see it when they wake up.
OK. Ill think about it and work out a plan then.
Hi @furion
What are the qualification to become a witness? I think I have the skill set to tackle this challenge, consider it another chapter of my IT life :)
Let me know sir.
Thank you,
@Yehey