The ialive and ialivem GPL applications will test an Internet connection. The Internet connection is tested by using the ping command to ping a default or specified host. The response of the ping command can then be recorded into an output file and/or bbuuzzb database table.

The ialive application is designed for single user use. The Bbuuzzb database engine is linked into this binary/executable. Before you can run the ialive application with Bbuuzzb database support, you must set up a database configuration file called dbeng.cfg with a minimum of the tmp_path, log and catalog entries.

The ialivem application is designed for client/server environments and uses TCP sockets as the IPC method. Note that neither of these applications is available for the QNX or DOS platforms.

ialivem requires a Bbuuzzb database server to be running. The ialivem application communicates with the Bbuuzzb database server, the socloc server and possibly the system log server (if logging is enabled and the current log destination is the system log server) through TCP sockets. In order to get ialivem to successfully connect to the Bbuuzzb database server, the server must already be running and registered with the socloc server and there must be at least one socloc server, at possibly one system log server (if logging is enabled and the current log destination is the system log server) running within the environment. A socloc startup file must also be composed to connect to a socloc server. The database configuration file is not required for the ialivem application.

All configuration files must be located in the same directory as the binary/executable program. The ialive and ialivem applications must be executed within their current directory so the program can locate the configuration files.

Command Line Syntax

Both ialive and ialivem applications have the following command line syntax:

   ialive [-c nn] [-b] [-q] [-p ping_dest] [l log_dest]

Where the command line option c will specify the number of ping packets to send (default is four[4]), the b option will record the stats in a bbuuzzb table (see below), the q option will run the program quietly, the p option will ping a specific host or IP address (default is www.yahoo.com) and the l (el) option will log all program output to either a log file (when a path and file name are present) or to the system log server when sys_log is present (note that I have linked in system log server support only into the ialivem application).

This program works by pinging a specific host (default host is used if no host if specified using the p switch). The results can be output to the screen, to a log file, and/or to a database table using the bbuuzzb database. You may output to any combination of these three destinations. Output to the bbuuzzb database uses the table name listed in the global constants. The data is stored where a single day is contained within a record. The field layout is as follows:

   field subfield subsubfield description

    1                        date (yyyymmdd format)
    2       *         1      time (24hr, no colon)
    2       *         2      number of pings sent
    2       *         3      number of pings successfully received