Thanks for the suggestions. I got it to work. Final solution is below.

Thanks!

-fiddler42

use Mail::Mailer;
use Term::Cap;
use POSIX;

my $TermIOs = new POSIX::Termios; 
$TermIOs->getattr;
my $OSpeed = $TermIOs->getospeed;
my $t = Tgetent Term::Cap { TERM => undef, OSPEED => $OSpeed };
(${norm}, ${bold}, ${under}) = map { $t->Tputs($_,1) } qw/me md us/;

$Timeout = 5;
$Home = "/path/to/my/home";
my @MasterMachineIndex = qw (host1 host host3);

foreach $Host (@MasterMachineIndex) {
    &ping;
    $UptimeCheck = "rsh $Host uptime";
    my $UptimeResult = "";
    eval {
        local $SIG{ALRM} = sub { die "Alarm!\n" };
        alarm $Timeout;
        $UptimeResult = `$UptimeCheck`;
        alarm 0;
    };
    if ($@) {
        ($@ eq "Alarm!\n") or die ("Unexpected error...\n");
        print ("${bold}Problems accessing $Host.${norm}  Skipping...\n
+");
        next;
    } else {
        $CheckHome = ("rsh $Host \"cd $Home\"");
        $HomeStatus = `$CheckHome 2>&1`;    # This captures STDERR and
+ STDOUT outputs that may or may not manifest...
        if ($HomeStatus =~ /No such/) {        # May need to add more 
+keywords here.  Not sure all OSs echo same nomenclature...
            print ("${bold}Home directory not mounted on $Host!${norm}
+  Skipping...\n");
        } else {                                         # e.g. auto-e
+mail admin?
            $CPUScan = "rsh $Host \"~/perl/CPUScan.pl >> ~/cpu.stats\"
+";
            $CHECK = `$CPUScan`;
            print ("$Host:\t$UptimeResult");    
        }
    }
}

sub ping {
    my $os = `uname -a`;
    if ($os =~ /SunOS/) {
        # For the line below, bytes transmitted will be 56+8=64 and 1 
+= # of transactions
        my $p = `ping -s $Host 56 1 | grep 'packet loss'`;
        unless ($p =~ /(\d+)% packet loss/) {
            print ("${bold}Bad Response from $Host.${norm}  Skipping..
+.\n");
            next;
        }
    } elsif ($os =~ /Linux/) {
        my $p = `ping -c 1 -t 1 $Host | grep 'packet loss'`;
        unless ($p =~ /(\d+)% packet loss/) {
            print ("${bold}Bad Response from $Host.${norm}  Skipping..
+.\n");
            next;
        }
    }
    my $loss = $1;
    if ($loss > 50) {
        print ("${bold}High packet loss from $Host.${norm}  Skipping..
+.\n");
        next;
    }
}
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