Host status

The probe uses the response time of the host following a ping to determine the status of the host.

The probe determines the host status in the following ways:

If the host responds before the trip time, the probe sets the $status element to alive.
If the host takes longer to respond than the trip time, but less than the time specified in the TimeOut property, the probes sets the $status element to slow.
If the host takes longer than the TimeOut period to respond, the probe sets the $status element to unreachable.

The probe provides valid responses even if the IP address is not the same as the IP address for which the probe was configured. This deals with situations where IP address aliases are used.

Note: If the hosts to be pinged are on the other side of a firewall, the firewall must be configured to allow ICMP packets through.