sugarkane - 8:44 am on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

You could use the Net::Telnet module if you want to be sure that the http server is running, rather than just the machine:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use Net::Telnet;
$connection=Net::Telnet->new(Timeout => 5, Host => "www.example.com", Port=>80, Errmode => sub {&error;});

sub error {
print "Connection Failed!\n";
}