Using Jenkins to run site up time and verification tests

I'm wondering if Jenkins could (and should) be used to run various checks that I need to perform a few times a day.

For example:

1. sites accessible
2. are dev sites password protected
3. are checkout pages using SSL
4. can an order be placed on each shop?
5. are all pages accessible? e.g. no 404s
6. are the correct databases being used

I could write python scripts to do the various checks (possibly wrapping them in a testcase) and in some instances using selenium.

I'd also like to have a test that loads each production site's settings file and verifies for instance, that SSL is switched on and the live database is being used that debug is turned off, etc.

Some of these tests only need to be run onc开发者_如何学Pythone before deploying, a few others may benefit from being run regularly.

Would jenkins be suitable for this purpose, or is it extending its remit a bit too far?

I'd be interested in using Jenkins purely to run tests, I don't need it to trigger a build or deployment.

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Jenkins is really just a job scheduler at its core, so there's no reason why you shouldn't use it for monitoring. However, you'd have to write your own scripts for most of the tasks you listed, whereas if you use a dedicated monitoring tool such as Nagios or Zabbix, you'll get all that functionality built in.

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Building on the input from @Freiheit and @gareth_bowles and my own experience, I would say you should not use Jenkins for monitoring because there are other solutions that require less up front development.

Furthermore, I have found that once you start Monitoring, you will want to measure, report and alarm about health and performance, which are areas where Monitoring tools will have functionality baked it and a Jenkins-based solution will require more fiddling.