Checking if the network is up

[Raul Miller <rdm@tad.micro.umn.edu>]

Luis Francisco Gonzalez:
 > Is there any way of checking whether the network is responding so
 > that I only run popclient when it is?

That usually depends on what exactly you mean by "the network".

If you're using diald or some such, take a look at the result of
`route`.

If the network is always "logically up" on your machine, but
frequently not "physically up" you'll need to probe for a response
from some remote system.  Take a look at the man page for ping and
read about the -c and -n options.  You'll need to run grep on the
result because the presence or absence of a remote host won't affect
ping's return code.

-- 
Raul