title: Python ping script
body: <p>I am trying to write a Python script that pings IP addresses and outputs whether each ping succeeded. So far I have the following code, but the output seems inaccurate. Namely, when I run the script, it pings each hostname as expected but the output is only ever all up or all down.</p>
  
  <pre><code>import os
  
  hostname0 = "10.40.161.2"
  hostname1 = "10.40.161.3"
  hostname2 = "10.40.161.4"
  hostname3 = "10.40.161.5"
  
  response = os.system("ping -c 1 " + hostname0)
  response = os.system("ping -c 1 " + hostname1)
  response = os.system("ping -c 1 " + hostname2)
  response = os.system("ping -c 1 " + hostname3)
  
  if response == 0:
      print hostname0, 'is up'
      print hostname1, 'is up'
      print hostname2, 'is up'
      print hostname3, 'is up'
  else:
      print hostname0, 'is down'
      print hostname1, 'is down'
      print hostname2, 'is down'
      print hostname3, 'is down'
  </code></pre>