The nmap command with the -sn option can be used to determine if a host (e.g. a target system) is up.

To determine if a single host is up using the IP address of the host.

nmap -sn 192.168.0.22

Or hostname, like this.

nmap -sn server1.example.com

If the target machine does not exist, is down, or is configured to block ICMP packets, something like this should be returned. On a Linux system, firewalld or iptables may be configured to block ICMP packets. You could configure firewalld to not block ICMP packets and then also flush the iptables rules since firewalld is the frontend for iptables.

Starting Nmap 6.40 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2020-08-30 11:17 CDT
Note: Host seems down. If it is really up, but blocking our ping probes, try -Pn
Nmap done: 1 IP address (0 hosts up) scanned in 3.01 seconds

If the host is up and not blocking ICMP packets, something like this should be returned.

Starting Nmap 6.40 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2020-08-30 11:17 CDT
Nmap scan report for 192.168.0.17
Host is up (0.00039s latency).
Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 0.02 seconds

A range of IP addresses

Here is how you would check a range of IP addresses.

nmap -sn 192.168.0.10-20

Scan every IP address in a subnet

Here is how you would scan every IP address in a subnet.

Note - This command may take a long time to complete, especially if your subnet contains a large number of hosts

For this reason, it's helpful to include the --status-every xx option

nmap -sn 192.168.0.0/24 --stats-every 5s