note Kozz blm: Thanks for the suggestion, btw! <P> Originally I tried parsing the output directly from /bin/ping but the script spewed an error about execute permissions of ping from within the script. THAT's why I had pursued Net::Ping, though only the ICMP worked as root. <P> I tried Net::Ping::External and it worked like a charm, no setuid bit or anything needed. Worked sweet. Thanks again. 200159 200179