Tom Thacker wrote in message <[log in to unmask]>...
>My boss has asked me if I can do something simple as a System Task. We have
a
>problem with our T1 supplier Cable & Phoneless^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^hWireless.
>Their links keep dropping & we need to periodically PING the remote Routers
at
>each plant to see if the connection is up. He wants me to write a simple
task
>that
>will wake up once every 2 minutes and PING each plant, reporting to the
Console
>and to each MANAGER logged on. I would like to programmatically call
>PING.ARPA.SYS from a System Routine. He wants a system routine so we don't
>have to add another background job (We already have 6). I know it can be
done
>because Beechglen has a job which starts it's own System Task. The job ends
off
>but the task keeps going. To stop the task, you delete a file in PUB.SYS
that
>the
>task creates as it launches.
>   I think I remember in the old classic Intrinsics manual that you could
call
>CREATEPROCESS with a parm that would cause the task to be spawned off
>independent of the parent task.


To the best of my knowledge (and I've done/seen a LOT of CREATEPROCESS
code), there is no way to get CREATEPROCESS to create a system/detached
process.  As far as I know, there is no SUPPORTED way in which a programmer
can create a detached process.  Not to say that it can't be done, just that
doing so is a little more difficult because it is not documented (to us
lowly users).

As for already having 6 background jobs.  Don't worry about it.  The number
of jobs is really irrelevant.  I have seen systems running 100-200 jobs
simultaneously without any problems.

And may I suggest you use somthing besides PING.  PING is a nice little
utility, but depending on the number of routers you want to check it could
cause your program to be quite a pig.  I would suggest you find out what
ports the router uses for management function and then simply write a
program that tries to open that port.  If it works, you know the router is
up.  If the router actually supports TELNET access you could write a program
that not only checks to see if the router is up, but could actually talk to
the router and get some information off of it.

Anyhow, good luck.

         )|||||(
         |     |
        (|-O-O-|)          o          o
         | ( ) |           oo .----. oo
         |     |            oo      oo
         |     |            (| ~  ~ |)
        / \   / \            |  ()  |
       /   \ /   \        .--.  --  .--.               .-----.
       |_|  V  |_|       /    \____/    \             /       \
       | |  V  | |      |                |           O--|__|   \
       | |  V  | |      |                |          (           |
 ------oOO---V-OOo--------oOO--------OOo----------------.  .----
| Michael P. Smith                                      |  |    |
| Sr. Systems Programmer                                (__)    |/|
| The Hertz Corporation    [log in to unmask] (work)          |/
| Oklahoma City, OK        [log in to unmask] (personal)      |
 ---------------------------------------------------------------
        (__) (__)          (___)   (___)                (___)

The thoughts, views and expressions contained in this message are those
of Michael P. Smith, and do not necessarily reflect those of the Hertz
Corporation.  To reply via email, remove the .xx from email address.