[TriLUG] OT: Amiable ping target

[Jon Carnes]

Not a long week, I'm just on vacation with the kids!  I'll look up my
script and forward it on if you like (later tonight when I get up to
Grandpa's place). 

Jon

On Fri, 2005-08-26 at 09:32, Israel J Pattison wrote:
> Jon,
> 
> Do you have a non-proprietary, automated way of doing this or has it just 
> been a long week?
> 
> Israel
> 
> On 26 Aug 2005 09:20:19 -0400, Jon Carnes <jonc at nc.rr.com> wrote:
> > 
> > We monitor QoS by measuring latencies along our path to various targets.
> > For IP's we use a traceroute from one endpoint to the other then ping to
> > the actual endpoints and routers along the path. This is much more
> > valuable information than just a general "are we up?" signal.
> > 
> > Using this we can quickly zero in on problem spots within the networks
> > of the ISP's that service our customers. We often end up knowing more
> > about the ISP networks than their own engineers.
> > 
> > Jon Carnes
> > 
> > On Fri, 2005-08-26 at 09:08, Brian Henning wrote:
> > > Hi Folks,
> > > Pardon my ignorance...but is there an IP somewhere out there that is
> > > specifically set up to be a ping target for checking connectivity?
> > > We're having some serious issues with our DSL here lately, and I want to
> > > set up a task to monitor it with pretty high resolution, say, around one
> > > ping per second (I have a feeling some of its frequent flakings are only
> > > seconds in length, but enough to interrupt our VPN).
> > >
> > > Obviously, doing this sort of thing would require a target (or more
> > > probably, list of targets) that are highly reliable themselves, to avoid
> > > false down indications. So I'd probably create a list of N targets, and
> > > each would only see a ping from me every N seconds unless one failed, in
> > > which case the process would ping the next target on the list 
> > immediately.
> > >
> > > My concern, of course, being a [hopefully] nice little Net citizen, is
> > > not wanting to irritate anyone by taking about 302kB out of their
> > > transfer quota every hour (3600 pings * 84 bytes each), unless they're
> > > intending to be so generous.
> > >
> > > In other words, I have a feeling I shouldn't just randomly choose some
> > > hosts (unless I choose a huge number of them...a possibility). Hence
> > > the question.
> > >
> > > And as a sideline question, if there's a nice utility out there already
> > > to do something like that (take a list of hosts and ping one every X
> > > seconds and report on the success), I'd love to know about it.
> > >
> > > Thanks a bunch as always!
> > > ~Brian
> > 
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> > 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Israel J. Pattison 
> Raleigh, NC
> Email: pattison at usa.com 
> Web: http://www.fanana.net
> 
> "Infinity, dear [friends], extends not only outward, but inward, into each 
> human heart." -- Dr. E. Urner Goodman