Looking for a 'fix' for my apache / php error_log

[spaceman]

Hi,

Every two minutes some 3rd party monitoring software pings my server, and this happens:

usr/local/apache/logs/access_log
66.225.240.194 - - [13/Apr/2006:15:35:27 +0800] "GET . HTTP/1.0" 400 2

/usr/local/apache/logs/error_log
[Thu Apr 13 15:35:27 2006] [error] [client 66.225.240.194] Invalid URI in request GET . HTTP/1.0

Is there anything (simple, hopefully) I can do/tweak on my server such that this request does not generate an 'invalid uri' entry in the (php) error_log?

This is obviously not a show-stopper problem for us. I just like to keep my logs tidy if I can so that I can see the wood for the trees.

P.S. Assume I'm not able adjust the 3rd party monitoring software, so my only opportunity is to tweak my server.

Thanks for any help.

P.S. Happy Easter.

[nickp666]

block the IP address from accessing your server, other than that I dont see any way you can format its requests

[chirpy]

Indeed. The problem is it's using conflicting protocols, i.e. PING -> HTTP which won't work and is why you get the error in the logs.

[spaceman]

Thanks guys.

The 3rd party monitoring is by a company who we actually *want* to be monitoring our servers for uptime - we're paying them to do this :-)

When I've showed them this issue they've very politely suggested that it's not a big deal, just ignore it, and just because it shows as an 'error' that isn't necessarily a 'bad' thing. I don't have a problem with their position - so I'm probably being a bit overly 'anal' :-) in trying to insert a workaround that doesn't fill my error logs.

So if anyone thinks that I'm not being anal (other than myself) and can suggest a comment I can go back with to our 3rd party support/monitoring company that might help them to fix this anomaly - I'm all ears :-)

[brianoz]

You're only being a little bit anal, after all, if they're monitoring your website they could at least send a properly constructed HTTP query. It should just be a matter of changing the "." in "GET ." to a slash, as in"GET /". I would have thought that should be trivially easy to get right.

If they haven't fixed it already after your first query perhaps you want to look for another monitoring company who can actually get it right! The problem with what they're doing now is that over time it floods your error logs and makes it harder to see the real errors.