Conky pinger

[Don B. Cilly]

I currently live in a bit of an electromagnetic hole. I make do with an antenna on the roof, an amplifier, and a SIM router.
Luckily, I get unlimited data and a double SIM for just over €20 a month, so it's OK... except the connection is... haphazard. Most of the time it's good, but not all.
So, rather than wondering whether "it's me or them", I have a little "connection monitor" in a corner of the screen.
It looks like this:



It consists of two parts: a little shell script that pings four hosts every ten seconds (each) and a conky that displays the results.
They are both eminently editable to fit one's needs/preferences.
The script:

#!/bin/bash
while :
do
ping -c 1 -U 1.1.1.1 | awk '/64/ {print substr($7,6,3)}' > /home/not/.local/bin/pp1.txt
sleep 10
ping -c 1 -U 8.8.4.4 | awk '/64/ {print substr($7,6,3)}' > /home/not/.local/bin/pp2.txt
sleep 10
ping -c 1 -U 104.20.219.35 | awk '/64/ {print substr($7,6,3)}' > /home/not/.local/bin/pp3.txt
sleep 10
ping -c 1 -U 130.206.13.20 | awk '/64/ {print substr($7,6,3)}' > /home/not/.local/bin/pp4.txt
sleep 10
done

The conky (relevant bit) :

${color5}${execbar cat /home/not/.local/bin/pp1.txt | awk '// {print $1/6}'}
${voffset -13}${alignr}CFLR ${exec cat /home/not/.local/bin/pp1.txt}
#
${execbar cat /home/not/.local/bin/pp2.txt | awk '// {print $1/6}'}
${voffset -13}${alignr}GOOG ${exec cat /home/not/.local/bin/pp2.txt}
#
${color5}${execbar cat /home/not/.local/bin/pp3.txt | awk '// {print $1/6}'}
${voffset -13}${alignr}M247 ${exec cat /home/not/.local/bin/pp3.txt}
#
${color5}${execbar cat /home/not/.local/bin/pp4.txt | awk '// {print $1/6}'}
${voffset -13}${alignr}IRIS ${exec cat /home/not/.local/bin/pp4.txt}

/6 is an arbitrary divider I use to get a number between 1 and 100 most of the time (what conky requires) with the ping times I get here.
Suggestions welcome :·)

[EDIT I tried triple pinging and getting the average, but awk made a hash of it half the time :·/

[jlittle]

A regular ping can help keep a connection up, sometimes. My desktop's ethernet chip's tendency to disconnect (on a wired connection) is much reduced by running a ping to the router every few seconds.

BTW,

p1=$(ping -c 1 -U 1.1.1.1 | awk '/64/ {print substr($7,6,3)}') ; echo $p1 > /home/not/.local/bin/pp1.txt

would be simpler as

ping -c 1 -U 1.1.1.1 | awk '/64/ {print substr($7,6,3)}' > /home/not/.local/bin/pp1.txt

;

[Don B. Cilly]

would be simpler as

True :·) I defined a variable as I was playing with divisions and things, then I realised it was simpler to divide 'n conquer in conky ;·)

[Don B. Cilly]

Actually, I found out that "$0" for a loop is a bad idea. It spawns infinite processes.
I've updated the code with the "while/do/done" proper loop, and simplified according to jlittle's suggestion.

[Snowhog]

$0 restarts it.

That bit remains in your OP. As you changed your script to while/do/done, and you mentioned the $0 isn't desirable...

[Don B. Cilly]

Done. -