add ping exporter

[anarcat]

The "ping" exporter is really an "fping" exporter but that's how it is named so I picked that.

[SuperQ]

How does this compare to this one: https://github.com/SuperQ/smokeping_prober

[anarcat]

differences:

• it's written in Python, not Golang
• it uses fping instead of a fork of go-ping

similarities:

• both are not in the current list (and there's no ICMP prober that i can find, except maybe the blackbox exporter, which is not an immediately obvious replacement for new users)

Maybe both should be added?

[anarcat]

darn it, here's another one:

https://github.com/localleon/pingpong

[brian-brazil]

If we're going to add one, it's be https://github.com/SuperQ/smokeping_prober as it's the most in line with the Prometheus way of doing things. We try to list only one exporter for a given purpose, and there's already overlap with the blackbox exporter.

[anarcat]

okay, i rebuild the patch to use the smokeping thing even though i think it's way overkill. :)

i do wonder about the overlap with the blackbox exporter as well.. maybe we should add a note on the blackbox exporter saying it can also do ping instead?

[SuperQ]

Yea, there are a number of Prometheus-compatible probers. The smokeping one I made I call it a prober, rather than exporter, as it's a stand-alone metrics generator rather than something like the blackbox exporter.

You're right, I should add some more description to the smokeping_prober's readme about how it works and why it's similar and different from the blackbox_exporter.

[SuperQ]

LGTM. 😄

[brian-brazil]

Thanks!