Well I thought I had some stuff figured out and after another 15 hours of reading/testing I haven't gotten much further.

I thought the ping part was working but now it seems intermittent, and I still can not get the foreach part to work. Basically I do not want to email a failure notive about the same failed ping to a host/IP until some time has passed, maybe 2-3 failures or something. While trying to ping once every 5 minutes. I have tried literally dozens of different ways to skip over the IP if it is on the email.list -- unless ($_ =~ my @eFile) -- was my last attempt but I can't get anything to work there.

Any assistance is appreciated, thanks Sam.

#!/usr/local/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Net::Ping;
use Net::SMTP;

my $from = 'from@email.com';
my $site = 'email.com';
my $smtp_host = 'smtp.email.com';
my $to = 'to@email.com';
my $smtp = Net::SMTP->new($smtp_host, Hello => $site);


my $oFile = open(oFILE, ">", "output.file") or die("unable to write to
+ $!\n");

my $hFile = open(hFILE, "<", "host.file") or die("unable to open $!\n"
+);
my @ip_array = <hFILE>;
chomp(@ip_array);

my $eFile = open(eFILE, ">", "email.file") or die("unable to write to 
+$!\n");
my @efile = <eFILE>;
chomp(@efile);

sub email {    
    $smtp->mail($from);
    $smtp->to($to);
    $smtp->data();
    $smtp->datasend("To: $to\n");
    $smtp->datasend("Subject: Ping failure notice.\n");
    $smtp->datasend("\n");
    $smtp->datasend("Ping failed on host $_\n");
    $smtp->dataend;
    print eFILE ("$_\n");
}

my $p = Net::Ping->new();

foreach (@ip_array) {
        if($p->ping($_)) {
            print oFILE ("$_ is responding to ping.\n");
        } else {
            print oFILE ("$_ is NOT responding to ping.\n");
            unless ($_ =~ my @eFile) {
            email();
            }
        }    
        }

close(hFILE);
close(oFILE);
close(eFILE);

$p->close();
$smtp->quit;

#End of Code
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The files I am using:

--host.file--
www.cnn.com
127.0.0.1
10.10.10.1
178.23.1.2
9.1.1.1>

--email.file--
<empty>

--output.file--
<empty>
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