It is necessary in certain cases we need to check whether the system or server is alive and if we want some alert like email or sms to inform you that the system is down.We can do it by a simple shell script .All we need is to install a package call fping
fping is a program like ping which uses the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) echo request to determine if a target host is responding. fping differs from ping in that you can specify any number of targets on the command line, or specify a file containing the lists of targets to ping. Instead of sending to one target until it times out or replies, fping will send out a ping packet and move on to the next target in a round-robin fashion.
installing command
sudo apt-get install fping
Script:
#!/bin/sh status=`fping 192.168.1.22 | cut -d ' ' -f 3` if [ $status != "alive" ] then echo 'system is down' //Here use your alert as you like email, sms, voice alert etc fi
Will check the system with IP 192.168.1.22 alive or not.Put it as a cron job and schedule the time interval to automatically check system status and get the alert…:)