For more detail on the method I used to setup the mySQL connection check out Re: Re: Re: Secure ways to use DBI?

The code below pulls the IP's from a database and runs through them 50 at a time...it runs quite well on a Ultra-Sparc 60

#!/usr/bin/perl

use Net::Ping;
use DBI ();
use Data_config;
use Parallel::ForkManager;

my $MAX_PROCESSES = 50;

## Create a database handle ##
## The actual user/pass info is in Data_config.pl ##
my $DSN = "DBI:$DBDRIVER:database=$DATABASE:host=$DBHOST:port=$DBPORT"
+;
my $DBH = DBI->connect($DSN, $USERNAME, $PASSWORD, {
        RaiseError => 1,
        PrintError => 1
});

$|=1;


my $PING_TIMEOUT = 2;

$pm = new Parallel::ForkManager($MAX_PROCESSES);
foreach my $IP (map { $_->[0] } @{
        $DBH->selectall_arrayref(
                "SELECT ip_address FROM ips" 
        )})
{
    # Forks and returns the pid for the child:
    my $pid = $pm->start and next;
        
        my $ping = new Net::Ping ("icmp");
        if ($ping->ping($IP, $PING_TIMEOUT))
        {
                print "$IP Gotcha! \n";
        }
        else { print "$IP \n";
        }
    $ping->close();
    $pm->finish; # Terminates the child process

}
$pm->wait_all_children;
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