There are several miscellaneous ping commands you can use for various tests.įor example, what if you don't have Nmap installed but need to see what hosts are up? Add the -b option to run a ping broadcast to an entire subnet. Get started with Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS (ROSA).eBook: Modernize your IT with managed cloud services.Remote destination by hostname: ping server01 (Note: If this succeeds, move on to other network tests).The chances of loopback and localhost tests failing are very low compared to other network configuration problems. I find it's more efficient to use the outward in approach because if step 1 succeeds, I can move on to other tests without wasting time. Remote destination by hostname: ping server01.Remote destination by IP address: ping 192.168.8.42.Local router/default gateway: ping 192.168.2.1.

The nearest addresses first approach looks like this: Many networking courses suggest that you use ping to test for configuration problems by pinging the nearest configurations first, working your way outward. This could mean an IP address misconfiguration on your end, a problem with the default gateway value, or that you're attempting to connect to a destination address that doesn't exist. Your computer was unable to send the query out to the desired destination. This indicates a likely issue on your end of the connection. The opposite is true with the unknown host output. Verify router and firewall configurations after that. Start by checking that the destination device is on, physically connected to the network, and has a valid IP address. Your machine sent the queries, but the destination failed to reply. However, it did not receive replies within a specified time, so it 'timed out.' The misconfiguration is likely on the destination end or on the network between your machine and the destination. The timeout message indicates that your machine believes it successfully sent ping queries to the destination. Both of these indicate a failure, but did you know that you can use these two results to predict where the network problem lies? The two most common results to watch for are timeout and unknown host. Results and techniquesĭelving a little deeper into the results, the ping output displays the hostname and IP address information, packet loss, response times, etc. This is because ping could not resolve the given hostname to an IP address in the second test. If you ping the same destination by hostname, and it fails, you know name resolution is not working. If you ping a destination by IP address, and the ping succeeds, you know you have basic connectivity. You can use the ping command to test name resolution services, too. I've used the continuous ping during reboots trick more than any other, however. I particularly like the ability do a quick name resolution query. I've already uncovered some good uses for ping with the above options. This is a quick name resolution query: # ping -c 1 server01įigure 4: Using the quiet mode with ping. You can use a variation of this to simply display the IP address of the destination by sending a single ping to a hostname. For example, to send five pings, type: # ping -c 5 192.168.2.200

You can adjust the number of pings by using the -c option, followed by the desired number of ping messages. I can even use an audible cue with ping, letting me know when the pings are successful. Plan for this if you work with both platforms. Note: The options for ping vary somewhat between Linux and Windows. In the meantime, I can work on other projects. When the ping results show success, I know the reboot process on the remote machine has been completed. I can issue the reboot command and then set up a continuous ping from my laptop to the server. The server needs to be rebooted before I can continue with its configurations. For example, imagine I'm remotely connected to a Windows server from my Linux laptop. One of my favorite uses of ping is to inform me when a remote server or network device has restarted. A practical introduction to container terminologyīy default, Linux sends continuous pings.

Ping 8.8 8.8 request timed out