Node connectivity is one of the most important health related properties that State observes. In order to do this, mod_ping provides a means to check nodes using the absolutely beautiful tool, fping. In order to use mod_ping fping will need to be installed and executable by the user that State is running as. You can grab fping at http://www.fping.com/. When you configure mod_ping, you can setup the command line options how you like them, which means for some level of customization.