Net::Ping doesn't use ICMP, but UDP/TCP to connect to the echo port of a machine. I tried using it, but found out you couldn't use ICMP and most machines don't have their echo port enabled for obvious reasons... In my current version I use Open3. The options for ping probably don't apply to Windows ping. I use FreeBSD 4.2 here.

#!/usr/local/bin/perl5 -w

use IPC::Open3;
use Symbol;

# .ping contains hostnames, each on a seperate line.
open(HOSTS, "<.ping") || die("Can't open hostsfile! ($!)\n");
@hosts = <HOSTS>;
close(HOSTS);

%PING = ();
%STATUS = (
  -1 => "Host not found",
   0 => "Not done",
   1 => "Host is alive",
   2 => "No reply from host",
);

foreach $host (@hosts) {
  chomp $host;
  $WTR = gensym();
  $RDR = gensym();
  $ERR = gensym();
  $PING{$host}{'PID'} = open3($WTR, $RDR, $ERR, "/sbin/ping -n -q -c 1
+ $host");
  close($WTR);
  while (<$RDR>) { $PING{$host}{'OUT'} .= $_; }
  while (<$ERR>) { $PING{$host}{'ERR'} .= $_; }
  $PING{$host}{'STATUS'} = 0;
}

foreach $host (keys %PING) {
  if(defined($PING{$host}{'ERR'})) {
    if($PING{$host}{'ERR'} =~ /Unknown host/) {
      $PING{$host}{'STATUS'} = -1;
      next;
    }
  }
  if($PING{$host}{'OUT'} =~ /.*, (.*) packets received.*/) {
    $PING{$host}{'STATUS'} = ($1 == 1?1:2);
  }
}

foreach $host (keys %PING) {
  printf "%-30s %s\n", $host, $STATUS{$PING{$host}{'STATUS'}};
}
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