This module allows the monitoring of several hosts by pinging them, that is sending one or more ICMP echo requests and reporting the round trip time for each host.

Data is displayed in 2 tables:
- The first containing static data as specified in the hosts options file (see -f command line switch documentation below).
- The second containing dynamic data resulting from the ICMP traffic from the pinged hosts. Invalid data, for unreachable hosts, is displayed using the special 000000 void values.
The list of hosts including specific options is kept in a file (hosts in the ping module directory, by default) passed as an argument to the module, as follows:
Module options:
-
-f filename
Use specified file for hosts list with options. Each line in the file must contain the following items, separated by blanks (tabs or spaces): host name or IP address, polling period, timeout, count, size and delay
-
-r host
The machine hosting the pinging daemon nmicmpd, localhost by default (also see INSTALL file in ping module directory on how to setup the pinging daemon).
Hosts file format:
While comment lines begin with the # character, other lines in the file must contain the following items, separated by blanks (tabs or spaces):
- host name or IP address
- polling period in seconds: time difference between each echo requests (as many as count, see below) group
- timeout in seconds: after which a new ICMP echo request is sent if there was no response for the previous request (if multiple packets are to be sent, see count below)
- count: number of ICMP echo requests to be sent (ignored and always set to 1 for this module release)
- size: ICMP packet size in bytes, must be greater than or equal to 64
- delay in seconds, before sending next ICMP echo request (used if count is greater than 1)
Examples:
$ moodss ping
$ moodss ping -f /home/jdoe/hosts.lst
$ moodss ping -r foo.bar.com