bide

Block until a target is stable, defined as N consecutive matching probes.

bide fills the niche between ping -c N (counts total replies, not consecutive replies) and TCP-only wait tools. It reads naturally in scripts:

bide -t 30s server01 && ssh server01 ...

Install

cargo install bide

For a local checkout:

cargo install --path .

Or build a release binary:

cargo build --release
# binary at target/release/bide

Requires Linux with unprivileged ICMP enabled (the default on modern kernels). If opening the socket fails with EACCES, either widen net.ipv4.ping_group_range or grant the capability:

sudo setcap cap_net_raw+ep target/release/bide

Usage

bide [OPTIONS] <TARGET>

Flag	Long form	Default	Meaning
-i	--interval	3s	Time between probe attempts. Bare numbers are seconds; suffixes: ms, s, m, h.
-s	--stable	3	Number of consecutive matching probes required.
-n	--max-tries	0	Maximum total probe attempts. 0 means no limit.
-t	--timeout	0	Overall deadline. 0 means no deadline.
-	--down	off	Wait for the target to stop responding.
-q	--quiet	off	Suppress progress output; only exit code matters.
-v	--verbose	off	Print each attempt with sequence number and RTT.
-h	--help	-	Show help.
-V	--version	-	Show version.

TARGET may be a plain host, IP address, or explicit ICMP URL:

server01
192.168.10.10
icmp://server01
icmp://[2001:db8::10]

Plain targets use ICMP. tcp://, http://, and https:// target forms are reserved for future probe backends and currently return a usage error.

How it works

Every --interval, one probe is sent. In normal mode, a reply builds the stable streak and a no-response resets it to 0. In --down mode, that rule is inverted: a no-response builds the stable streak and a reply resets it.

As soon as the streak reaches --stable, the tool exits 0. If --timeout elapses or --max-tries is exhausted first, it exits 1.

Output

Default output goes to stderr and stays compact:

• Startup: server01: waiting for 3 stable icmp replies every 3s
• Progress: server01: 1/3
• Repeated mismatches: server01: waiting ..........
• Success: server01: 3/3 ok
• Deadline: server01: deadline reached after 30s
• Attempt cap: server01: max tries reached after 10 attempts

Waiting dots wrap after 50 dots. Before printing a progress or terminal line, bide finishes any active dot line with a newline.

Sample output:

server01: waiting for 3 stable icmp replies every 3s
server01: 1/3
server01: 2/3
server01: waiting ...
server01: 1/3
server01: 2/3
server01: 3/3 ok

Verbose mode is line-oriented and includes attempt details. Quiet mode emits nothing during normal operation.

Examples

# Wait forever until 3 ICMP replies in a row succeed, 3 s apart.
bide server01

# 5 s interval, 3 consecutive replies, 30 s overall deadline.
bide -i 5s -s 3 -t 30s 192.168.10.10

# Bare durations are seconds.
bide -i 5 -t 30 server01

# Bound by attempts instead of wall-clock: give up after 10 probes.
bide -s 3 -n 10 server01

# Wait up to 60 s for a host to stop responding.
bide --down -t 60s server01 && echo "server01 stopped responding"

# Power-cycle a host and wait for it to stabilize before SSHing in.
pwrctl off server01 && sleep 5 && pwrctl on server01 && \
  bide -t 2m server01.lan && \
  ssh server01 systemctl status my-service

Exit Codes

Code	Meaning
0	Required stable streak achieved.
1	--timeout reached or --max-tries exhausted without achieving the streak.
2	Invalid arguments, unsupported target scheme, or usage error.
3	Host resolution failed or fatal network error, such as missing ICMP permission.
130	Interrupted by SIGINT (Ctrl-C).
143	Terminated by SIGTERM.

Progress and errors go to stderr; stdout is reserved for future machine-readable output.

Probe Backends

Current builds ship with ICMP echo only. The target syntax reserves URL forms for future backends:

tcp://server01:22
http://server01/healthz
https://server01/healthz

Platform

Primary target is Linux. IPv4 and IPv6 are both supported; address family is inferred from the resolved address. macOS / Windows support is best-effort.