I only tried this with 1.6.1 and 2.1, but it sems that /sbin/ping
blocks if it is dropped into background, complaining about "tty
output" even when stdout and stderr are redirected on the command
line.  I see no option to turn this behaviour off and I need it so I
can use ping in a daemon script to establish connectivity.

Must I search the sources to fix this or are there overriding
considerations that make this a desirable feature?

++L