Simple Python socket monitoring script

monitor.py

#!/usr/bin/env python

import sys
import socket
from datetime import datetime
from time import sleep

is_connected = None


if len(sys.argv) != 3:
        print "Provide host and port as parameters"
        sys.exit(1)

host = sys.argv[1]
port = sys.argv[2]

print "Monitoring host: " + host + " port: " + port
while True:
         # new_state = None
        s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
        s.settimeout(2.0)
        try:
                s.connect((host, int(port)))
                new_state = True
                s.close()
        except IOError:
                new_state = False

        if new_state != is_connected:
                is_connected = new_state
                print str(datetime.now()) + ' connection status: ' + str(is_connected)
        sleep(10)