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Is there a way to make the Ubuntu 14.04 terminal trigger a success or, if it fails to ping Google, a different sound, such as if the wifi goes down? If so, how would I do so on constant loop in the background, after a certain length of time passes? I assume it would be something like (command); sleep (time length); done or similar?

arauzo
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Markeus Aythan Alvarez Halberd
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3 Answers3

4

The question is actually a bit broad, AskUbuntu is for specific questions and this is more like can someone make me a script.
But hey, it's just a couple of lines, let's get you started:

#!/bin/bash
while "true"
do
    ping -w 10 -c 5 www.google.com
    if test $? -ne '0'
    then
            spd-say "connection lost"
            sleep 3s
    fi
done

Basically we repeat a endless loop with ping and check if it exits with an error. ($? gives the exit-code of the previously executed program).

For timing you can just alter the ping command. Now turn on your speakers and enjoy. :)

Requist
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  • I think you might want to add some pause time after saying "connection lost," otherwise it just sounds like conne con con con con c c c c c c c c conne con con conne – SuperSluether Jan 09 '16 at 22:59
  • Not exactly, -w is a deadline so no matter how many packet are send times out after this time, -c is the amount of requests it tries to send within this time. If no replies come back they time out so speed will be low. The default interval is 1 second. So I would expect 10 sec on failed connection and 5 sec on a successful connection. However here ping reacts a bit different then I would expect. It only sends out only 3 pings in a timeframe of 2 seconds.. Strange... – Requist Jan 09 '16 at 23:24
  • Well, I just tried running your script. Once the pings time out, it just says connection lost over and over again, but it doesn't finish saying it before it loops again, so it just sounds like it's saying "con" over and over. – SuperSluether Jan 09 '16 at 23:42
  • what time does it display and how many pings are being sent per cycle? – Requist Jan 09 '16 at 23:47
  • Ah, found the problem. I tried with a connection failing but a dns still responding; therefor the packets just time out like expected. When the dns fails also the host becomes unknown and there is no timeout; hence what you see. I'll update to fix that. – Requist Jan 09 '16 at 23:51
1

While

ping -a IP_ADDRESS

makes an audible beep (like echo -e "\a") every time it success, I have not found any option in the standard ping command to beep when failure.

Based on @Requist answer, one line that using crontab sets up the desired behavior every 5 minutes may be:

(crontab -l 2>/dev/null; echo "*/5 * * * * /bin/ping -w 10 -c 4 8.8.8.8 || spd-say 'off'") | crontab -

Note: As this sets up a crontab job, you will need to use crontab -e to disable it by removing the introduced line (or to edit its parameters).

arauzo
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-1

ping -A 1.2.3.4 The uppercase A parameter to send us a beep sound whenever the target stops replying to our ping.

Oak
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  • This is not a standard option. Please say where this works, and ideally provide some supporting documentation. … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Please do not respond in comments; [edit] your answer to make it clearer and more complete. – G-Man Says 'Reinstate Monica' Jul 03 '19 at 19:32
  • FreeBSD ping command includes such parameter since version 4.5. However, this is AskUbuntu site and I have not found any version of Ubuntu with that behavior. '-A' in Ubuntu is adaptive ping which tries to send packages every time a new package arrives. – arauzo Jul 01 '20 at 12:53