RE: [cobalt-developers] A PING manager

[corliss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

On Fri, 26 Jan 2001, Malcolm Wild wrote:

> Oh yes :)
> 
> heres a nice little Win32App needs a perminent connection to really benefit
> but its simple easy to confirgure and can do loads
> http://www.alchemy-lab.com/products/eye/

FYI, a ping utility isn't any guarantee of anything, and is a little less than
useless.  I've seen many a box whose daemons ceased to serve requests for one
reason or another (like running the system out of HD space), but it merrily
replied to pings.

A more reliable method would be to actually poll your critical services.  A
simple Perl script using LWP::Simple can test your HTTP services in just a few
lines, and the same amount of effort can test FTP, SMTP, and anything else
you'd care to try.

Just my $.02, of course, but if you're relying on ICMP echoes to determine
system availabilty, you've already defeated that purpose.

	--Arthur Corliss
	  Programmer/Administrator
	  Gallant Technologies (http://www.gallanttech.com/)