my %down;

open my $ifh, '<', $hostfile or die "Can't read '$hostfile: $!\n";

while(my $addy = <$ifh>) {
    chomp $addy;
    $down{$addy} = system qq{nc -w 1 $addy 22 > /dev/null 2>&1}; # 0 =
+ up, not 0 = down
}