Host Monitor

A lightweight command-line tool to track host availability across your network.

Host Monitor is a simple, no-frills tool for checking whether a list of hosts is reachable. Run it from the terminal, point it at a set of hostnames or IP addresses, and it will show you a continuously refreshing dashboard with the status and latency of each one.

It is useful for keeping an eye on servers, network devices, or external services during maintenance, incident response, or routine monitoring. No agent installation on the target hosts is required.

📶

ICMP and TCP Checks

Ping hosts using ICMP first, then fall back to a TCP connection check if ICMP is blocked. This means firewalls and cloud environments that suppress ping traffic are less likely to give you a false “down” result.

🖥️

Cross-platform

Runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, and BSD. The same tool and the same command-line interface work identically across all four platforms, so you can use it wherever you need it.

📋

Config File Support

Load your host list from a plain text file, one host per line. Useful for monitoring a fixed set of servers without having to retype the list every time.

⏱️

Configurable Refresh

Set the refresh interval with a single flag. The default is 30 seconds, drop it to 5 for near-real-time feedback during an incident, or raise it if you are monitoring over a slow connection.

How to Use It

Download the appropriate binary for your platform, make it executable if needed, then run it from the terminal:

# Monitor specific hosts, with an optional TCP port
host-monitor google.com:443 example.com 192.168.1.1:22

# Load hosts from a file
host-monitor -f hosts.txt

# Set a 10-second refresh interval
host-monitor -i 10 google.com:443 example.com:80

The config file is a plain text file with one host per line. You can include a TCP port on any line (e.g. example.com:443) or leave it as a bare hostname or IP address. Lines beginning with # are treated as comments and ignored. Duplicate entries are silently skipped.

# Web servers
example.com:443
google.com:443

# Infrastructure
8.8.8.8
192.168.1.1

The display updates on each cycle, showing each host as either UP (with latency in milliseconds) or DOWN.

Notes

On Linux and macOS, ICMP requires elevated privileges. Either run with sudo or grant the binary the appropriate capability (cap_net_raw).
If ICMP is blocked by a firewall, specify a TCP port and the tool will use a connection check instead.
If you have a firewall on your own machine, make sure outbound ICMP and the relevant TCP ports are permitted.
The -i interval must be greater than 0. The tool will exit with an error if you pass 0 or a negative value.
Hostnames must not start with -. A config file entry that looks like a flag (e.g. -myhost) will cause the application to exit with an error, so rename the entry to fix it.