LWP::Simple can serve as an alternative to Net::Ping. For example: 
#!/usr/bin/perl -l

use strict;
use warnings;
use LWP::Simple;
use Time::HiRes qw(sleep);

my $content = head('http://www.perlmonks.com');
foreach (1..20) {
    if ( $content ) {
        print "Site is reachable on: ", scalar(localtime());
        sleep 0.5;
    }
    else {
        print "Site isn't reachable";
    }
}

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In reply to Re: why doesn't Net::ping work when native ping does? by Khen1950fx
in thread why doesn't Net::ping work when native ping does? by markseger

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