How to use Ping

 

Windows Environment

Ping can be accessed at a DOS or command prompt. An Internet connection must already be established.

1. Click on Start > Programs > DOS Prompt (Windows 95-98) or Command Prompt (NT). In a Windows 2000 or XP environment, click on Start > Run. Type command into the dialog box, then click OK.
2. In the resulting command line window, type ping hostname, where hostname can be a domain name, a machine name or an IP address.
3. Press Enter.

For example:

C:\> ping www.more.net

Mac OS X Environment

1. Double-click on the Hard Drive icon > Applications folder > Utilities folder > Network Utility program
2. Select the Ping tab and enter the hostname, where hostname can be a domain name, a machine name or an IP address.
3. Press Enter.

Novell Environment

1. At the System Console screen, type load ping.nlm. The ping program will launch.
2. Enter the required parameters, i.e., Host name, Seconds to pause between pings, and IP packet size to send in bytes.
3. Press the Esc key.

Linux/UNIX Environment

1. Launch a command line interface (will vary depending on operating system distribution).
2. In the resulting command line window or screen, type ping hostname, where hostname can be a domain name, a machine name or an IP address.
3. Press Enter.

For example:

[bob@linuxbox /home]# ping www.gnu.org

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Additional Ping Commands

These extra commands will work in any environment except the Novell operating system.

• To stop ping, type Ctrl-C.
• To print the results of ping to a text file on a local drive, add > textname.txt to the command:

  For example:

  Ping www.apple.com > ping.txt

  will save the results to a ping.txt file located on the primary hard drive.

• To append the results of more than one ping to the same text file on your local drive add >> ping.txt to the command:

  For example:

  Ping www.novell.com >> ping.txt

  will save the results to the same ping.txt file located on the primary hard drive.

The commands below can be entered in the same manner.

-t
Pings the specified computer until interrupted.

C:\> ping www.apple.com -t

-n count
Sends the number of echo packets specified by count. The default is 4.

C:\> ping www.apple.com -n 7

-l length 
Sends Echo packets containing the amount of data specified by length. The default is 32 bytes; the maximum is 8192.

C:\> ping www.apple.com -l 1024

Sending larger packets may reveal network problems (dropped packets, slowness) that may not be apparent when smaller packets are utilized.

Traceroute

Traceroute (tracert) works by sending a packet to an open UDP port on a destination machine. For the initial three packets, traceroute sets the TTL (see explanation of TTL) to 1 and releases the packet. The packet then gets transferred to the first router (completing the first hop), and the TTL gets decremented by the router from 1 to 0. The router then discards the packet and sends off an ICMP notification packet to the original host with the message that the TTL expired from the router. This tells tracert what the first hop is and how long it takes to get there. Traceroute repeats this, gradually incrementing the TTL until a path to the remote host is traced and it gets back an ICMP Port Unreachable message, indicating that the remote host has been reached.

Response times may vary dramatically because the packet is crossing long distances, other times the increases come from network congestion.

For Example:

C:\> tracert www.linux.org

or

C:\> tracert 198.182.196.56

will show:

Tracing route to www.linux.org [198.182.196.56]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <10 ms <10 ms <10 ms mn-bldg-rtr-vlan200-3.gw.more.net [207.160.133.254]
2 <10 ms <10 ms <10 ms co-r12-01-atm0-0-10.mo.more.net [150.199.11.1]
3 <10 ms 10 ms <10 ms kc-r12-01-atm1-0-131.mo.more.net [150.199.7.198] 
4 <10 ms 10 ms <10 ms bb2-g8-0.kscymo.swbell.net [151.164.8.247]
5 <10 ms 10 ms 10 ms sl-gw9-kc-2-0.sprintlink.net [160.81.18.233]
6 * * * 
7 50 ms 61 ms 60 ms 198.ATM7-0.XR2.TOR2.ALTER.NET [152.63.128.53]
8 50 ms 60 ms 60 ms 194.ATM7-0.GW1.TOR2.ALTER.NET [152.63.128.101]
9 50 ms 70 ms 60 ms att2-gw.customer.alter.net [157.130.159.82] 
10 61 ms 60 ms 60 ms pos5-0-0.hcap1-ott.bb.attcanada.ca [216.191.225.2]
11 60 ms 70 ms 70 ms 216.191.132.150
12 60 ms 81 ms 70 ms router.invlogic.com [207.245.34.122]
13 70 ms 70 ms 80 ms www.linux.org [198.182.196.56]

Trace complete.

Note the asterisks on line six. This can indicate that a response wasn’t received. Some routers do not issue TTL-expired ICMP messages.

How to use Traceroute

Windows Environment

Traceroute can be accessed at a DOS or command prompt. An Internet connection must already be established.

1. Click on Start > Programs > DOS Prompt (Windows 95-98) or Command Prompt (NT). In a Windows 2000 or XP environment, click on Start > Run. Type command into the dialog box, then click OK.
2. In the resulting command line window, type tracert hostname, where hostname can be a domain name, a machine name or an IP address.
3. Press Enter.

   For example:

   C:\> tracert www.emints.more.net

Mac OS X Environment

1. Double-click the Hard Drive icon > Applications folder > Utilities folder > Network Utility program.
2. Select the Traceroute tab and enter the hostname, where hostname can be a domain name, a machine name or an IP address.
3. Press Enter.

Novell Environment

1. At the System Console screen, type load iptrace hostname, where hostname can be a domain name, a machine name or an IP address.
2. Press Enter.

Linux/UNIX Environment

1. Launch a command line interface (will vary depending on the operating system distribution).
2. In the resulting command line window or screen, type traceroute hostname, where hostname can be a domain name, a machine name or an IP address.
3. Press Enter.

   For example:

   [sygny@linuxbox /home]# traceroute www.novell.com

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Additional Traceroute Commands

These extra commands will work in any environment except for the Novell operating system.

• To stop traceroute, type Ctrl-C.
• To print the results of traceroute to a text file on a local drive, add > textname.txt to the command:

  For example:

  tracert www.pmail.com > tracert.txt

  will save the results to a tracert.txt file located on the primary hard drive.

• To append the results of more than one traceroute to the same text file on your local drive add >> tracert.txt to the command:

  For example:

  tracert www.rpmfind.net >> tracert.txt

  will save the results to the same tracert.txt file located on the primary hard drive.