using fping to monitor internet connection status

[Paul Hamilton]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Greg Barniskis [mailto:nalists at scls.lib.wi.us] 
> Sent: Thursday, 6 July 2006 11:32 PM
> To: Paul Hamilton
> Cc: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: using fping to monitor internet connection status
> 
> 
> Paul Hamilton wrote:
> > Hi,
> >  
> > I need to monitor a number of IP addresses, so that if they ALL go 
> > down (say three IP's), then that is a pretty good 
> indication that my 
> > server has lost internet connectivity.  [snip] Any idea's on a ping 
> > tool or simple script?
> 
> Your test would be a little simpler if you just test one IP address: 
> your ISP's upstream router. Its reachability is quite definitive re: 
> whether your ISP link is up or down.
> 
> Even it it's assigned dynamically by DHCP, you should be able to 
> write a script that pulls that IP, pings it a few times, and checks 
> the result. No special tools necessarily required.
> 
> -- 
> Greg Barniskis, Computer Systems Integrator
> South Central Library System (SCLS)
> Library Interchange Network (LINK)
> <gregb at scls.lib.wi.us>, (608) 266-6348
> 
> 

Hi All,

Thanks for your input.  I was hoping there was another cmd/util out there
similar to fping that I could elegantly use.  I like the above idea though,
so I ended up using this to isolate the upstream ISP gateway IP: 

 traceroute -nm 2 <close-by Internet IP> | tail -1 | awk '{ print $2 }'

Integrated that into the fping Perl script and we are away!

Thanks once again  :-)


Cheers,

Paul Hamilton
While the cats away - the mice do play!