I've seen this happen when ping returned an error. In my case, it was actually ping6 because it had a bad IPv6 address configured.
Since it's intermittent in your case, most likely the root cause is something else, but ping is still returning an error. If I had to venture a guess, maybe it's "destination unreachable" - which would indicate a real problem in your network. If 10.1.1.1 is on a different subnet, it would be a routing issue. If it's on the same subnet, it's probably an ARP resolution issue. But all that is guesswork. You'd have to catch ping in the act and see what it really returns. I don't see any options in check_ping that could give you that information, but maybe you can write your own shell script that watches for ping error messages and logs them or reports them as check results. Shon Elliott wrote: > occasionally, I'll get a response that flags nagios to go critical: > > /sbin/ping -n -c 5 10.1.1.1 > CRITICAL - Could not interpret output from ping command > > This happens maybe once or twice a day. Is it getting confused with > something else? > > It doesn't seem to happen on any consistant basis, or with any > particular host we are monitoring, and does not appear that the host has > stopped responding via a normal ping when this happens. > > > Regards, > Shon Elliott > Senior Network Engineer > unWired Broadband, Inc. > Office: (559) 261-4444 x 511 > Cell: (559) 917-6480 > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Enter the BlackBerry Developer Challenge > This is your chance to win up to $100,000 in prizes! For a limited time, > vendors submitting new applications to BlackBerry App World(TM) will have > the opportunity to enter the BlackBerry Developer Challenge. See full prize > details at: http://p.sf.net/sfu/Challenge > _______________________________________________ > Nagios-users mailing list > Nagios-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nagios-users > ::: Please include Nagios version, plugin version (-v) and OS when reporting > any issue. > ::: Messages without supporting info will risk being sent to /dev/null > -- Kevin Keane Owner The NetTech Find the Uncommon: Expert Solutions for a Network You Never Have to Think About Office: 866-642-7116 http://www.4nettech.com This e-mail and attachments, if any, may contain confidential and/or proprietary information. Please be advised that the unauthorized use or disclosure of the information is strictly prohibited. The information herein is intended only for use by the intended recipient(s) named above. If you have received this transmission in error, please notify the sender immediately and permanently delete the e-mail and any copies, printouts or attachments thereof. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Enter the BlackBerry Developer Challenge This is your chance to win up to $100,000 in prizes! For a limited time, vendors submitting new applications to BlackBerry App World(TM) will have the opportunity to enter the BlackBerry Developer Challenge. See full prize details at: http://p.sf.net/sfu/Challenge _______________________________________________ Nagios-users mailing list Nagios-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nagios-users ::: Please include Nagios version, plugin version (-v) and OS when reporting any issue. ::: Messages without supporting info will risk being sent to /dev/null