Ping-Out

A bash script and a systemd service that check internet connectivity by pinging 8.8.8.8.

The bash script ping-out.sh pings every 60 seconds to the presumably always available IP address 8.8.8.8. If packages may be lost, an error will be logged into a file.

Prerequisites

The script requires bash. The service requires also systemd.

Usage

Review and adjust the script ping-out.sh according to your gusto. E.g. adjust the log file path, the time interval or the IP adress to which to ping to.

Start the script like:

bash ping-out.sh

You can detach the script from the terminal session and run it in the background:

nohup ./ping-out.sh &

Running ping-out as a Service

The script setup-systemd-service.sh can set up the service on platforms that support systemd, e.g. Ubuntu. Running ping-out.sh as a service allows for autostart and running in the backgorund.

To install the systemd service for ping-out on Ubuntu, run:

sudo bash setup-systemd-service.sh

This copies the script ping-out.sh into the directory /usr/local/bin and the file ping-out.service into the directories of the systemd installation. On other platforms than Ubuntu, you might have to adjust the setup-script.

After installation, you may control the service via typical systemd commands:

sudo systemctl enable ping-out  # run service at system startup
sudo systemctl start ping-out
sudo systemctl stop ping-out
sudo systemctl restart ping-out
sudo systemctl status ping-out

If you want to make changes to the program, change the script and replace the script file in /usr/local/bin/.

Contributing

Work on your stuff locally, branch, commit and modify to your heart's content. If there is anything you can extend, fix or improve, please do so! Happy coding!

TODO