Checking if remote exists before calling send

[bufo]

I have an application which sends and receives messages down a number of sockets. If I call send to a socket where the pc on which I need to send the message to has crashed and is re-booting then the program crashes out. Is there any way in which I can check the status of the socket or remote machine before doing the send?

Originally posted as a Categorized Question.

[rasta]

I can advice you two solutions:

1. Use SO_KEEPALIVE socket option like in the following example:

  use IO::Socket;
  my $sock = IO::Socket::INET->new('some_server');
  $sock->read(1024,$data) until $sock->atmark;

2. You may use NetPacket::ICMP to check if remote host is alive.