UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Ok I have just started using UNIX and am trying to write a script that will ping a list that I have created in a file called ipaddesses
I need to get it to find the ip address that is not in use and do nothing however if it finds that all ip addresses have been taken to send me an e-mail!

the system is on SUN Solaris v8 and I am absalutly stuck I don't want to use grep to do it as i would have to know what all possible error messages are.
PLEASE HELP
Regards
a very troubled Jono

Since you are pinging IP addresses, there should be a default of only two responses. Alive or not. If you were pinging host names, then you might get into a problem of the hostname is unknown (could not be found in /etc/hosts, DNS, NIS, ...).

Read the man page on ping - add in the timeout parameter (I'm not on my systems right now to check it)
$ ping 10.140.1.40|grep -i alive
or
$ ping 10.140.1.40|grpe -ic alive

The second would give you either 0 or 1 as the "answer". Go from there....

Thankyou mate thats really good!
just should I send the results to a file in they aren not alive? and if they aren't alive is their away of testing that the file has lines in which case it send a mail saying ip addresses all in use? if you get what I mean?
Thanks for that though!
Jono

Code:

#!/bin/sh

for a in `cat ipaddresses`
do 
   if
    /usr/sbin/ping $a|grpe -ic alive
    break
   else
mail "email address" <<!!!
message
!!!
fi
done

ok I am thinking that this will find the first ip address that didn't return the alive value and exit or if all IP addresses ping then send an e-mail is this right?/?//?


the file is called ipaddresses and contains several ip addresses in $1 example I need it to check each ipaddress!

IPADDRESSES (file name)

160.60.224.1
160.60.224.2
160.60.224.3
160.60.224.4
160.60.224.5

Regards
Jono

added code tags for readability --oombera

#!/bin/sh

for a in `cat ipaddresses`
do
/usr/sbin/ping $a|grep -ic alive
exit 0
else
mail jshwood <<!!!
message
!!!
done


please help!
Regards
Jono

No tested, try it.

#!/bin/sh

for a in `cat ipaddresses`
do
if /usr/sbin/ping $a|grep -ic alive
then
/usr/sbin/ping $a|grep -ic alive
else
mail jshwood <<!!!
message
!!!
fi
done

I need it to e-mail me if all ip addresses are taken!
sorry I probably didn't explain that that well!