So we have all done it, you just did some change to a server and you want a quick check to make sure everything is running as it should be, chances are your probably already in CLI so why not do it from there? Or may be your trying to fault find an issue on a web server, checking the website locally would probably be really helpful, however there’s go GUI for a conventional web browser to function…

‘Links’ is a Linux text based browser that you can use from the local terminal or over SSH, it can save you a lot of time and is a great quick check to see if a website is online, first you need to install it.

Run either of the following depending on your linux distribution; the first one is for something like CentOS/Redhat, the second is for Debian/Ubuntu.

yum install links

apt-get install links

You might need to prepend ‘sudo’ to the command if your not root.

Next just type Links followed by the website you want to test, don’t forget the http:// before the URL and then just use Ctrl+C to exit links when your done.

links http://pingbin.com

Links is a great way to test your website, if your website looks to be down from the server it’s normally a good idea just to check the firewall rules first (iptables -Lvn), also try Google from the links browser as that’s probably not down as well, unless you are Goolge 😉