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Shell function to check if Internet access is available.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

checkInternet()
{
  echo -e "GET http://google.com HTTP/1.0\n\n" | nc google.com 80 > /dev/null 2>&1 # query google with a get request
  if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then #check if the output is 0, if so no errors have occured and we have connected to google successfully
    return 0
  else
    echo "Error: no active internet connection" >&2 #sent to stderr
    return 1
  fi
}

# Usage:
checkInternet || exit 1