Ping multiple targets and keep track of results

Working from home provides some benefits, but also creates some problems. Such as when your cable modem mysteriously decides to be non-repsonsive, even while it is passing data across its interfaces.

So, I wrote this little bash script to help me diagnose the problems with my cable modem and the ISP network beyond.

Basically, it pings multiple targets, and keeps track of the results, but most importantly, it tracks the transitions, and the failure durations.

Note: nobody cares when things are working well, but when they are not working reliably, then you need lots of data, especially when dealing with the cable service providers.

cd ~/src/github # or wherever you wish to have this repo
git clone git://github.com/aks/ping-check.git
cd ping-check
make install

This code depends on bash-lib and the make install will check for dependencies, and install them if needed.

ping-check [options] [TARGET] ..

Periodically ping one or more TARGET IP addresses and keep track of results.

The default TARGETs are 8.8.8.8, and the current default gateway, which is determined dynamically, using the netstat command.

This script is intended to monitor the network uptime, and produce a log file of uptime data, or periodical outage data.

Unless the -f option is given, the job will automatically background itself.

The output is collected into ~/pingcheck.log.

The PID of the currently running process (if any) is stored in ~/.ping-check.pid.

Options:

-h show this help

-k kill the currently running ping-check process

-l list the currently running ping-check process (if any)

-n no run (don't actually do commands)

-f foreground; don't automatically background the ping process

-v be verbose

FILES

~/bin/ping-check

The default installation path.

~/ping-check.log

The output of the currently running ping-check process

~/ping-check.pid

The process id of the currently running ping-check process

AUTHOR

Alan K. Stebbens [email protected]