Ping in Linux
The PING command is used to test the connection and latency between two network connections. These connections can be either in a local area network or a wide area network or the internet as a whole. The PING command sends packets of information to a specified IP Address and then measures the time it takes to get a response from the specified computer or device.
Steps
- Open a TERMINAL window
- Type "ping" in the Command Window.
- Hit the space bar once.
- Type the IP or website address that you want to ping, after the space. For example, if you want to ping eBay, type "www.ebay.com" after the space. If you want to ping your Router it might be "192.168.1.1"
- Hit "Enter." If the website is up and actively responding, you receive replies back from the server that you pinged with the following information:
- The IP address
- The number of Bytes sent
- The time it took in milliseconds
- The TTL is Time to Live (This indicated the number of "hops" back from the computer pinged from that computers initial TTL value.)
- Press CTRL C to stop the command and show results.
- Analyze the information. The lower the round trip number in milliseconds, the better. The higher the round trip number in milliseconds, the higher the latency, which may indicate a network problem between your computer and the server you pinged.
Tips
- Ping can also be used in multi-user LAN to see if a particular user is online in the system, where all systems has data base support for all the local users.
- You can also run a remote PING. This allows you to ping an IP address or computer from a computer other than yours to see if the problem may be associated with your local connection rather than the IP Address you are trying to connect to.
