Ping from SharePoint list

Question

I'm new to SharePoint and I'm wondering if I can achieve the following:

I have an Excel sheet with the IP addresses of various devices in our building. I need to monitor the status of each device and if they drop off the network change a field in my Excel sheet. I have imported the Excel sheet as a SharePoint List. I'm wondering if it is possible for me to run a ping command in the background then change the field from Active to Offline depending on the response I get. I have been looking online for several days now and dont seem to be able to find anything.

I have checked the link below and im wondering is the Client-Side Rendering suitable for my situation.

SharePoint List Ping IP Address

Answer 1

I don't think this is a good use case for SharePoint. You're talking about running a "ping" from a web page but JavaScript running in a web page cannot do this - it only speaks HTTP. So you can issue HTTP requests but if your devices are not web servers that's not going to work for you.

Consider running a scheduled job that runs on a computer in your network. If you really need to have this data in SharePoint then have your scheduled job update SharePoint accordingly using .NET CSOM.

Answer 2

If I'm sure, you're using SharePoint Online, so your only possibility is to use a client-side option. I think that you can actually do this using Client-Side Rendering (JSLink) in your list, or just using a Content Editor WebPart in the page.

I would write a jQuery script to ping the devices. Here and here are some examples to ping using JS. So, once you get a response from a device, you have two options:

1. Modify DOM: You can modify the DOM of the page to modify the text of the field "Status". The disadvantage of this is that it's tedious to modify the text, since you have to navigate through the DOM, besides, you will not be storing the value in "Status" field. The advantage is that you will see the real status of each device using the setTimeout() JS function every X seconds in your custom function.
2. Update field using API REST: You can use SharePoint API REST to update the field "Status" with the value you want. The disadvantage of this is that if you want on-live change of Status text without refreshing page, you will have to code first option.

Answer 3

I would store the data in a SPO list but run the PING from Azure Automation on a regular schedule. Then use the SharePoint PNP cmdlet Set-PnPListItem to record the success or failure. You could also add a PowerBI component and build an Up-time Dashboard.