ping <host>
Sends Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) ECHO_REQUEST packets to a network host.
- ipv4_address
- Pings the IPv4 address of the host.
- ipv6_address
- Pings the IPv6 address of the host.
- hostname
- A host being pinged. This keyword is used when the host is specified as a host name rather than as an IP address.
Operational mode
The ping command tests whether a network host is reachable.
The ping command uses the ECHO_REQUEST datagram (ping) of the ICMP protocol to get an ICMP ECHO_RESPONSE from a host or gateway. ECHO_REQUEST datagrams have an IP and an ICMP header, followed by a struct timeval data type and then an arbitrary number of pad bytes that are used to fill the packet.
The host is specified either as host name (if DNS is being used on the network) or as an IPv4 or IPv6 address. If a host name is specified and neither the ipv4 nor ipv6 keyword is used, the IPv4 or IPv6 address associated with the host name is pinged, depending on which address is resolved first.When using the ping command for fault isolation, enter the command on the local host to verify that the local network interface is up and running. Then, ping hosts and gateways farther away. Round-trip times and packet-loss statistics are computed.
If duplicate packets are received, they are not included in the packet-loss calculation, although the round-trip time of these packets is used in calculating the minimum, average, and maximum round-trip times.
When the ping command is interrupted by typing <Ctrl>+c, a brief statistical summary is displayed.
This example shows how to test whether the network host, www.google.com is reachable.
vyatta@vyatta:~$ ping www.google.com
PING www.google.com (216.58.196.100) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from maa03s19-in-f4.1e100.net (216.58.196.100): icmp_req=1 ttl=54 time=42.3 ms
^C
--- www.google.com ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 0ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 42.364/42.364/42.364/0.000 ms