pingcheck

Name

pingcheck -- Records time to ping hosts on the network.

Description

Pingcheck is used to ping hosts on the network and record the time taken to receive a response. If ping times are not needed and only the availability of hosts is needed (i.e. "up" or "down"), then the hostcheck module may be more useful. This module can be given IP addresses or hostnames, which are resolved by pingcheck using DNS.

Configuration

Configuring pingcheck is quite simple. Each desired host is set with the "checkHost" variable. Any number of hosts may be given. For example:

config
{
	checkHost = 192.168.0.1
	checkHost = mycompany.com
	checkHost = alpha
}
		

Windows users may configure pingcheck though the RSPD Configuration window. Hosts are added and removed from a list. See Chapter 2 for more details.

Thresholds

Pingcheck also supports thresholds. Any of the hosts which were given to check may be used in a threshold. Any of the basic logical operators are allowed (==, !=, <, >, <=, >=). Although pingcheck returns times as milliseconds, any small time unit between seconds and nanoseconds may be used and pingcheck will convert it to milliseconds. Typically however milliseconds are a good unit to use as ping times will be in that range. Here are some example thresholds:

# Example thresholds for pingcheck
thresh1.threshold = PingCheck.192.168.0.1 > 30 msec
thresh2.threshold = PingCheck.alpha < 0.5 milliseconds
		

History Data

The pingcheck module will ping times for each host or IP address it is given. This data, using the RSP History Viewer or RSP Web tools, can be used to show server availability over time.