Who is ping

The result of each echo request is displayed, showing whether the request received a successful response, how many bytes were received in response, the Time to Live TTL , and how long the response took to receive, along with statistics about packet loss and round trip times. The ping utility has been incorporated into virtually every operating system with network support.

While echo request and echo reply are ICMP messages, the exact implementation of the Ping utility varies slightly among manufacturers. In its simplest form, the ping utility can be run with nothing more than the ping command and a destination. The remote host can be specified either by name or address.

There are numerous switches available for the ping command that allow the default settings to be customized for more specific purposes. Unfortunately, there is no consistency across platforms for the different switches.

For example, Windows uses a -n number to set how many pings to send, while most Unix systems use a -c count. Here are some examples of ping command switches. Generally, using ping -? Number or count — sets the number of echo requests, or pings, to be sent. By default, this number is four on most Windows systems, and five on most Unix systems. Setting a higher number allows the ping to continue to run either as a way of gathering more data, for example, to see if the reply time varies, or as a way of ensuring that a system continues to be responsive.

Timeout — changes the timeout before the utility waits for a reply from the destination. On Windows systems, the default value is 4, milliseconds, or 4 seconds. Size — changes the size of the ping packet. Until stopped — keeps running the ping until stopped by the user -t in Windows. For such a small, basic utility, the ping command can be a valuable tool in numerous situations.

As a command-line based utility, ping lends itself to easy use in various scripts, allowing for numerous pings to run and be recorded for all manner of usage. For example, the output of the ping command can easily be piped to a text file for later review. Perhaps the most common use of the ping utility is in troubleshooting.

When trying to use applications or systems over a network, the most important thing to know is if there is actually a working connection. A series of ping commands can help determine what the problem is. A quick ping by IP address will confirm that the system is on, that there is a connection, and that the two machines can talk to each other.

If the ping is successful by name and IP address, but the response times are long, there may be a routing, network speed, or congestion issue. Even unsuccessful pings can provide valuable troubleshooting information.

If a ping by IP address is successful, but a ping by name fails, then there is a name resolution issue. If the ping fails altogether, you can try to ping other parts of the network to isolate the issue. A successful ping of the default gateway confirms that the network connection is functioning, but that something is interfering with a connection to the remote system.

If you can ping successfully with the same subnet of the remote system, but not the target system itself, then the network connectivity of the remote host is in doubt. Partner Spotlight. Investigate Our Resources Webinars Register for expert-led webinars, panel discussions, and on-demand recordings. Blog Explore DomainTools research, infosecurity insights, company updates, and more.

White Papers Access cybersecurity industry reports, market research, and strategy papers. User Guides Get answers and guidance on how to use DomainTools products. Survey Reports Learn about cybersecurity trends and challenges from industry surveys. Case Studies See how real customers use and benefit from DomainTools products and solutions.

Videos Watch demonstrations and use case overviews of DomainTools products. Podcasts Listen to security news stories, interviews, and educational discussions. Featured Resources. Breaking Badness Tales of Justice, Cash, and Shrootlessness.

Leadership Meet our exceptional executive team of business leaders and industry experts. Board of Directors Meet the group of dedicated leaders who oversee our business. Press Room See DomainTools in the news and read our latest announcements. Corporate Responsibility See how DomainTools gives back and supports the community.

DomainTools acquires Farsight Security to enhance its threat intelligence capabilities. It also determines the network accessibility of a specific IP address and is used in order to determine and ensure that a host computer which a user is trying to reach is really operating. Primarily, PING is used to troubleshoot internet connections. PING offers two primary objectives which are to check if the host is available and to measure how long the response will take.

PING command is one of the most commonly used of the various command line interfaces. PING consists of a single packet which presents an echo request. If the host is available, it responds with a single packet. The time measurement for PING is quantified in milliseconds, this refers to the time for the packet to reach the host and for the response to go back to the sender.

This is necessary for the system because IP protocol does not have a method of error reporting. This reports errors and expects higher layers of the OSI architecture model to handle and correct the errors.

A round-trip will be calculated by taking note of the local time of the source node clock when the IP datagram will leave the source node, and then it will be subtracted from the time at which the echo reply arrives. This determines if the IP address or hostnames that do not exist in the network or that the destination hostname cannot be resolved.

This determines if the destination node is down or is not operating on the network.