use Net::Ping;


my @host_array = qw( www.slashdot.org www.deja.com  www.perlmonks.org );

my $proto = 'tcp';
my $def_timeout = '40';
my $bytes = '52';

my $p = Net::Ping->new($proto,  $def_timeout , $bytes);

   foreach my $host (@host_array) {
            print "$host is ";
            print "NOT " unless $p->ping($host, 2);
            print "reachable.\n";
        }

$p->close();


##</code><code>##

bclarkso-sun:/users/bclarkso/snips --> perl -w ping.pl
www.slashdot.org is NOT reachable.
www.deja.com is NOT reachable.
www.perlmonks.org is NOT reachable.