This seems to be a bug in tcpping. You should contact Richard van den Berg, as he’s the author of that script. (The 255 is the ttl value it’s leaking out for some reason)

Hi,
I set up a smokeping server and I am using tcpping extensively as it allows me to check response time with different QoS classes (i.e. on different TCP ports).
I noticed a problem between TCPPing and Smokeping : packet loss does not seem to be handled. For instance when the firewall of the target is set up to ignore packets (drop them without notice), tcpping output something like this :
tcpping -C -x 5 1.2.3.4
1.2.3.4 : 255 255 255 255 255

Smokeping therefore graph shows a response time of 255ms instead of showing packet loss.

Am I the only one to experience this?

Versions I am using
System : Debian Lenny
Smokeping : v. 2.3.6
tcptraceroute : 1.5beta7
tcpping : 1.7

Did you apply Anton’s patch?

I am using the following version:
Running on SmokePing-2.0.9 by Tobi Oetiker and Niko Tyni

Also you can find the config file I use at the following url (note i did change email address/domainname):
http://yourpaste.net/620/

Hey Mark, what version of smokeping and the probe are you using? The probes linked to above are for a pre-2.0 version of smokeping, and smokeping 2.3.0 should have them included.

Hello,

Can someone help me with this probe? I get the following error:
Reloading smokeping configuration…require Smokeping::probes::TCPPing failed: Base class package “probes::basefork” is empty.
(Perhaps you need to ‘use’ the module which defines that package first.)
at /usr/share/perl5/smokeping/Smokeping/probes/TCPPing.pm line 55
BEGIN failed–compilation aborted at /usr/share/perl5/smokeping/Smokeping/probes/TCPPing.pm line 55, line 99.
Compilation failed in require at (eval 11) line 3, line 99.

the probe will be in the upcoming smokeping 2.3.0
cheers
tobi

Thanks Anton!

I’ve let tobi know, so hopefully we’ll see the next version supporting tcpping out-of-the-box.

I find this probe very useful. Some of the services I monitor are behind firewalls that drop ICMP traffic (not my firewalls), so this is the only way sometimes.
Yesterday I finally came around to fix the probe to work with Smokeping 2.0.9 (the one that comes with Debian Etch as of the time of writing).

Here’s a link to the patch, I hope it is of use to someone.

I’ll probably get around to upgrading them to SmokePing 2.0 when it’s packaged with Debian, and the old scripts stop working