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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!nntp.coast.net!oleane!jussieu.fr!math.ohio-state.edu!usc!hookup!news.mathworks.com!uunet!in2.uu.net!betty.bway.net!kives From: kives@bway.net (Stephen Kives) Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin,alt.sys.sun,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.unix.programmer,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.admin Subject: Re: ping script Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 00:14:26 -0400 Organization: bway.net, part of Outernet, Inc. in New York City Lines: 25 Message-ID: <kives-1907960014260001@news.bway.net> References: <Pine.SOL.3.93.960702171209.4062B-100000@gold.acns.fsu.edu> <31DA8A95.61BB@hybrid.com> <4rjo9o$gn@anorak.coverform.lan> <Pine.GSO.3.93.960715213545.21927D-100000@delta.ds2.pg.gda.pl> NNTP-Posting-Host: dial64.bway.net Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.sys.sun.admin:70824 alt.sys.sun:10424 comp.unix.bsd.misc:1258 comp.unix.programmer:39758 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:4338 comp.unix.admin:45075 In article <Pine.GSO.3.93.960715213545.21927D-100000@delta.ds2.pg.gda.pl>, Alan Ghafour <alan@delta.ds2.pg.gda.pl> wrote: > On 5 Jul 1996, Brian Somers wrote: > > : Use two pings just because of routing issues, the > > : first ping may get an error. The second ping will > > : verify that the node is really missing. > > > > Despite the return code on FreeBSD being correct, historically, it is not > > guaranteed. If you want to write a portable script, don't do it this way. > > I strongly recommend getting the "fping" utility off the net. It works beautifully, giving the correct return codes without a problem. It will, by default try a given address three times before giving up. It also has a provision for taking target addresses from a file or standard input. The best feature, IMHO, is the time-out specification. The standard 10-second timeout of most "ping"s out there is grossly unuseable for this purpose. By setting the timeout to "-t1000" for a thousand milliseconds, you can get a reliable determination that a given host is truly "dead" before reporting it as so. (This assumes your target hosts are well connected, not subject to one-second roundtrips normally.) Steve Kives