I'm not sure about ibook dashboard, but I wrote a heartbeat checker for my web app that could be used to confirm http connection, perhaps it could do what you need... original post here
You call the code with a URL to check, a max ttl, and a callback. If the page has not responded by the end of the ttl (in milliseconds) the callback is called with null else you get the status and the request object.
function heartbeat(url, ttl, callback) {
// Confirms active connection to server by custom URL response
//
if (!url) {
url = "http://www.yourwebsitehere.com/yourpage?someheartbeatcall";
// Replace with specific server heartbeat location and query string for cache busting
}
if (!ttl) {
ttl = 1000; // Custom timeout in milliseconds
// Replace with specific server heartbeat location and query string for cache busting
}
// Create the Ajax object
var ajaxRequest;
try{
ajaxRequest = new XMLHttpRequest();
}
catch (e){
// Internet Explorer Browsers
try{
ajaxRequest = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");
}
catch (e) {
try{
ajaxRequest = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
}
catch (e){
// Unable to create
callback(null);
return;
}
}
}
// Set flag so only one pulse is recorded
var called = false;
// Make ajax call
ajaxRequest.onreadystatechange = function(){
if(ajaxRequest.readyState == 4){
if (!called) {
called = true;
callback(ajaxRequest.status, ajaxRequest);
}
}
}
ajaxRequest.open("GET", url, true);
ajaxRequest.send(null);
// Make ttl timeout call
var ttlcatch = setTimeout(function(){
if (!called) {
called = true;
callback(null);
}
}, ttl);
return;
}
var foo = false;
heartbeat("http://www.google.com", 1000, function(pulse){alert(pulse);} )