Internet connectivity indicator applet

Question

Because my internet connection is very unstable at the moment I'd like to use a small indicator applet for the unity panel. Since I'm connected trough a WLAN/Wifi Router I can see in the network-applet if the connection to the router is lost, but not if the router looses the connection to the Internet. A windows 7 box of mine has this functionality, it shows a black exclamation mark on yellow ground if it can't "ping" a remote server.

I'm running Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" 64-Bit with Unity 3D.

Answer 1

Whilst you mentioned you wish to do this in the network applet - I don't think you can do this. Here is an alternative.

internet up

internet down

how to for 11.10 & 12.04

It requires an indicator from a PPA together with a custom ping test script:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alexeftimie/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install indicator-sysmonitor
mkdir -p ~/scripts && cd ~/scripts

using:

gedit pingtest.sh

Copy and paste the code below into the new file and save & close.

Give the file execute permission:

chmod +x pingtest.sh

Start the indicator

indicator-sysmonitor &

Then in the indicator-preferences:

click "use this command" and copy and paste the following text:

$HOME/scripts/pingtest.sh

code

#!/bin/bash

if ping -c 1 -W 2 google.com > /dev/null; then
 echo "Up"
else
 echo "Down"
fi