On 1/22/06, Chris Bagnall <m0n0wall at minotaur dot cc> wrote:
>
> Before I go and write a script to ping boxes every few minutes, does anyone
> have 1) a better way of doing it, and/or 2) any scripts they'd feel
> comfortable sharing?
>

If you just need something that basic, I like Smokeping.  There are
much more thorough solutions, but if all you want to monitor is pings,
Smokeping will graph response time and optionally email you when there
is loss.
http://people.ee.ethz.ch/~oetiker/webtools/smokeping/

It's not nearly as comprehensive as many of the other available
packages, but setup time is only a couple minutes, vs. potentially
days getting the bigger packages in shape.

-Chris