Check a server is up. If it isn't mail me.

ping -q -c1 -w3 server.example.com >& /dev/null || echo server.example.com ping failed | mail -ne -s'Server unavailable' admin@example.com

For some reason the 2&>1 does not work for me, but the shorter stdout/stderr redirection >& works perfectly (Ubuntu 10.04).

By: brainstorm

2010-09-08 12:19:29

echo mail ping bash ping mail

3 Alternatives + Submit Alt

Check a server is up. If it isn't mail me.

Joker wants an email if the Brand X server is down. Set a cron job for every 5 mins with this line and he gets an email when/if a ping takes longer than 3 seconds. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
An email saying "brandx.jp.sme ping failed"
```
8

ping -q -c1 -w3 brandx.jp.sme 2&>1 /dev/null || echo brandx.jp.sme ping failed | mail -ne -s'Server unavailable' joker@jp.co.uk

mccalni · 2009-10-13 14:13:04 19
Check a server is up. If it isn't mail me.

Alternative to the ping check if your firewall blocks ping. Uses curl to get the landing page silently, or fail with an error code. You can probably do this with wget as well. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
An email saying "brandx.jp.sme ping failed"
```
2

curl -fs brandx.jp.sme 2&>1 > /dev/null || echo brandx.jp.sme ping failed | mail -ne -s'Server unavailable' joker@jp.co.uk

mccalni · 2009-10-23 14:29:06 7
Check a server is up. If it isn't mail me.

This version uses netcat to check a particular service.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

nc -zw2 www.example.com 80 || echo http service is down | mail -s 'http is down' admin@example.com

putnamhill · 2010-09-08 13:18:16 4

What Others Think

>> For some reason the 2&>1 does not work for me, Because it is 2>&1

maelcum · 735 weeks and 6 days ago

rahimhh21 · 111 weeks ago

Perfecthomepugs · 102 weeks and 1 day ago

pugpuppies95 · 64 weeks and 2 days ago

yeneba6574 · 19 weeks ago

What do you think?

Any thoughts on this command? Does it work on your machine? Can you do the same thing with only 14 characters?

You must be signed in to comment.

What's this?

commandlinefu.com is the place to record those command-line gems that you return to again and again. That way others can gain from your CLI wisdom and you from theirs too. All commands can be commented on, discussed and voted up or down.

Share Your Commands

Similar Commands

Start delivery of mail queued on a secondary mail server.

Display email addresses that have been sent to by a postfix server since the last mail log rollover

Count new mail

Bulk change of mail domains in Rainloop

Stay in the loop…

Follow the Tweets.

Every new command is wrapped in a tweet and posted to Twitter. Following the stream is a great way of staying abreast of the latest commands. For the more discerning, there are Twitter accounts for commands that get a minimum of 3 and 10 votes - that way only the great commands get tweeted.

» http://twitter.com/commandlinefu
» http://twitter.com/commandlinefu3
» http://twitter.com/commandlinefu10

Subscribe to the feeds.

Use your favourite RSS aggregator to stay in touch with the latest commands. There are feeds mirroring the 3 Twitter streams as well as for virtually every other subset (users, tags, functions,…):

Subscribe to the feed for:

» all commands
» commands with 3 up-votes (commandlinefu3)
» commands with 10 up-votes (commandlinefu10)