Run ping command every hour in backgrond

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi,
I have a VPN tunnel. It is going down occasionally. I need to run "/usr/sbin/ping 172.xx.xx.xx.xx" and it give mes output "172.xx.xx.xx is alive" and immediately after that VPN tunnel comes up.
Till we find permanent solution, I want this command to run in background, like every one hour. Should I simply have below entry in cronjob ?

0 * * * * /usr/sbin/ping 172.xx.xx.xx.xx

Or any other way ?

2

I don't see an immediate problem except the strange IP format. What's the result if you install that crontab entry?

3

It is not executing via crontab. I am root. ( I am giving actual IP, not xx.xx.). Just for testing purpose, I made it every minute

bash-3.2# crontab -l | grep -i ping
* * * * * /usr/sbin/ping 172.23.xx.xx > /tmp/ping_test
bash-3.2# cat /tmp/ping_test
cat: cannot open /tmp/ping_test
bash-3.2#

If I run command manually, I can see output in /tmp/ping_test

4

Can't tell why it behaves as described. Is the path correct?
If I reproduce your setup, cron creates an (endlessly) ping ing process every minute. You might want to limit the ping count so it stops after a few pings.
/tmp/ping_test is cat able all the time. That error message I can't reproduce; all I get is cat: /tmp/pt: No such file or directory in case.

5

Yes, path is correct. If I run it manually, it works

bash-3.2# crontab -l | grep -i ping
* * * * * /usr/sbin/ping 172.23.xx.xx > /tmp/ping_test
bash-3.2# which ping
/usr/sbin/ping
bash-3.2# cat /tmp/ping_test
bash-3.2# /usr/sbin/ping 172.23.xx.xx > /tmp/ping_test
bash-3.2# cat /tmp/ping_test
172.23.xx.xx is alive
bash-3.2#