The ping.py script pings a server and sends an email if the ping fails.
The script is intended to be run as a cron job from a machine with an SMTP server set up. You can set up an SMTP server with sudo aptitude install postfix.
The ping.py script creates the file last_email_time.txt to store the time, in seconds since epoch, when the most recent notification email was sent.
You will need to create a configuration file named 'notify_these_addresses.txt'. It should be similar to 'example_notify_these_addresses.txt'.