perl ping failure - perl

Question

#!/usr/bin/perl
use Net::Ping;
$p = Net::Ping->new();
my $main_ip="$ARGV[0]";
if ($p->ping($main_ip,1)){
$result=true;
print "$main_ip is alive \n";
}else{
print "$main_ip is down \n";
}
I am using above perl script to ping check the server. It worked fine all the cases except for IP 192.168.0.168.
$ perl test.pl 192.168.0.168
192.168.0.168 is down
]$ ping 192.168.0.168
PING 192.168.0.168 (192.168.0.168) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.0.168: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.304 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.168: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.355 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.168: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=2.94 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.168: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=0.388 ms
--- 192.168.0.168 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 3292ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.304/0.997/2.944/1.124 ms
]$ ping 192.168.0.18
PING 192.168.0.18 (192.168.0.18) 56(84) bytes of data.
From 192.168.0.181 icmp_seq=2 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.0.181 icmp_seq=3 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.0.181 icmp_seq=4 Destination Host Unreachable
--- 192.168.0.18 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 0 received, +3 errors, 100% packet loss, time 3292ms
pipe 3
]$ perl test.pl 192.168.0.18
192.168.0.18 is down
I had no clue even I have increase ping timeout but the results same

Answer 1

The only problem i can think of is, that the ping command uses the ICMP protocol as default, while Net::Ping uses TCP. You can switch Net::Ping to ICMP by creating your object like this:
my $p = Net::Ping->new( 'icmp' );
Take note, that making ICMP pings requires root privilege on Unix.

Answer 2

In order to send icmp packets you must have rights to create raw sockets, i.e. have root rights.
I suppose you running ping.pl as ordinary user, but you need to be root
ls -al `which ping`
-rws--x--x 1 root root 39640 Dec 17 2011 /bin/ping
^
|
suid bit
ping program has a suid bit, which allows to run ping program with root rights.
By default Net::Ping tries to connect to echo port (7/tcp), if it gets ECONNREFUSED - this means that host is up but refuses connection (nothing is listening on that port). if connect breaks on timeout, this means that host is down.
But! I can block all connection to 7/tcp by firewall:
iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --dport 7 -j DROP
and... voila, i get down instead of alive
So, you should check firewall on your failure pinged host