[wplug-bsd] test if a host is alive

[Brandon Kuczenski]

I am writing an automated script to periodically copy files from my
windows machine to my server for backup purposes.  I want the script to
test to see whether the machine is awake before proceeding with the
script [ I don't leave the windows machine running all the time ] .  Can
anyone recommend a way to do that?  My first thought is ping, but I would
like a command that just returns "true" if contact was successful after a
fixed period of time and "false" if not -- maybe ping can do that, but I
didn't see it in the options.

-Brandon