Tec Guide

PING

ping is a computer network tool used to test whether a particular host is reachable across an IP network. Ping works by sending ICMP “echo request” packets ("Ping?") to the target host and listening for ICMP “echo response” replies (sometimes dubbed "Pong!" as an analog from the Ping Pong table tennis sport.) Using interval timing and response rate, ping estimates the round-trip time (generally in milliseconds although the unit is often omitted) and packet loss (if any) rate between hosts. Ping stands for – Packet Internet Groper.

The word ping is also frequently used as a verb or noun, where it can refer directly to the round-trip time, the act of running a ping program or measuring the round-trip time.

Sample pinging

The following is a sample output of pinging www.google.com under Linux with the iputils version of ping:

$ ping www.google.com

PING www.l.google.com (64.233.183.103) 56(84) bytes of data.

64 bytes from 64.233.183.103: icmp_seq=1 ttl=246 time=22.2 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.183.103: icmp_seq=2 ttl=245 time=25.3 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.183.103: icmp_seq=3 ttl=245 time=22.7 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.183.103: icmp_seq=4 ttl=246 time=25.6 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.183.103: icmp_seq=5 ttl=246 time=25.3 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.183.103: icmp_seq=6 ttl=245 time=25.4 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.183.103: icmp_seq=7 ttl=245 time=25.4 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.183.103: icmp_seq=8 ttl=245 time=21.8 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.183.103: icmp_seq=9 ttl=245 time=25.7 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.183.103: icmp_seq=10 ttl=246 time=21.9 ms

--- www.l.google.com ping statistics ---

10 packets transmitted, 10 received, 0% packet loss, time 9008ms

rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 21.896/24.187/25.718/1.619 ms

This output shows that www.google.com is a DNS CNAME record for www.l.google.com which then resolves to 64.233.183.103. The output then shows the results of making 10 pings to 64.233.183.103 with the results summarized at the end.

• smallest ping time was 21.896 miliseconds


• average ping time was 24.187 miliseconds


• maximum ping time was 25.718 miliseconds


• mean deviation time was 1.619 milliseconds

The following is a sample output of pinging www.google.com under Microsoft Windows XP with its built-in version of ping:

C:\>ping www.google.com

Pinging www.l.google.com [64.233.183.103] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 64.233.183.103: bytes=32 time=25ms TTL=245
Reply from 64.233.183.103: bytes=32 time=22ms TTL=245
Reply from 64.233.183.103: bytes=32 time=25ms TTL=246
Reply from 64.233.183.103: bytes=32 time=22ms TTL=246
 

Ping statistics for 64.233.183.103:

    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:

    Minimum = 22ms, Maximum = 25ms, Average = 23ms

This output shows that www.google.com is a DNS CNAME record for www.l.google.com which then resolves to 64.233.183.103. The output then shows the results of making 4 pings to 64.233.183.103 with the results summarized automatically at the end.

• smallest ping time was 22 milliseconds


• average ping time was 23 milliseconds


• maximum ping time was 25 milliseconds