[EAS] EAS: Pinging remote computers

[Alex Hartman]

Ping is useful to find out if the machine is alive, but it doesn't check if there's service availability. We developed a Heads-up display (www.radiostationhuds.com) at KVSC that's an information aggregation system using SNMP and other methods. So, honestly, an SNMP GET will return status of the unit much better than a simple ping. And others have mentioned, many large networks turn off ICMP to contain broadcast floods or DDoS attacks.

Had the broadcast world kept up with the IP world (pay attention manufacturers) they would not only implement SNMP, but install something like a cacti client on the boxes so that they can be actively polled. Instead of asking if something is wrong, they tell you something is wrong. 

The Internet industry was getting away from SNMP in the late 90's because of it's "pull" methods versus something active or "push" method of things like cacti or nagios. 

The HUD we developed runs on a 40 inch LCD over my main studio console, which has a warm body in it 20 out of 24 hours. They're my first-line-of-defense. It blinks red when something is wrong. It also can be set to email me specific statuses. Has removed a lot of human element stuff. When my TX room blower threw a belt and got up to around 140 degrees and nobody noticed for 6 hours... Yeah, that. It'll also display all the EAS/CAP alerts right on the screen for instant dissemination, it also shows me things like service availability of devices, not if they're just on or off. Right now it's designed to work with the Sage Blue box, but i'd imagine it'd be easy to make work with the Trilithic's or anyone else's as long as there's an SNMP client running on the device.

Checking on the IPAWS server... well, without a valid key from FEMA/DHS, you have to leave that part up to the EAS/CAP boxes, unless FEMA gives out a "service available" key for people to poll against. (hint hint)

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Alex Hartman