For people who don't have fork as an option, another take (that WON'T process in parrallel) but will give you the ability to get errors as soon as one times out is using closures.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use Net::Ping;

sub make_ping_iterative (\@) {
    my $count = 0;
    my $arrayref = shift;
    
    my $p = Net::Ping->new("icmp");

    return sub {     
            if ($count  >= @$arrayref){
                # If you want to keep going for infinity,
                # Just uncomment the following line and remove the two
+ that follow
                # $count = 0 
                $p->close();
                return ;
            }
            return ($p->ping($arrayref->[$count], 2), $arrayref->[$cou
+nt++]);
        };

}

my @ips = qw (209.6.x.x 209.6.x.x 209.6.x.x );

my $pinger = make_ping_iterative(@ips);

while ( my ($up,$host) = $pinger->() ){
    print $host, $up ? " is up\n" : " is down\n";
    # Do other stuff here.
}
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-Lee

"To be civilized is to deny one's nature."