Linux Command - ping

ping - test if a host is reachable on a network by sending ICMP ECHO_REQUEST to network host.

By default ping will continue to ping the host until user press Ctrl+C. use -c option to set the number of times.

Syntax

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ping [OPTIONS] host_name_or_ip

Options

Common Option Description
-c count specify number of times
-i seconds sets interval in seconds between request. default is 1 second
-O display a message if no response was received
-s packetsize Specifies the number of data bytes to be sent. The default is 56, which translates into 64 ICMP data bytes when combined with the 8 bytes of ICMP header data.

Examples

Ping a host 5 times

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ping -c 5 yahoo.com

Sample output

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PING yahoo.com (72.30.35.9) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from media-router-fp1.prod1.media.vip.bf1.yahoo.com (72.30.35.9): icmp_seq=1 ttl=53 time=31.2 ms
64 bytes from media-router-fp1.prod1.media.vip.bf1.yahoo.com (72.30.35.9): icmp_seq=2 ttl=53 time=85.0 ms
64 bytes from media-router-fp1.prod1.media.vip.bf1.yahoo.com (72.30.35.9): icmp_seq=3 ttl=53 time=311 ms
64 bytes from media-router-fp1.prod1.media.vip.bf1.yahoo.com (72.30.35.9): icmp_seq=4 ttl=53 time=816 ms
64 bytes from media-router-fp1.prod1.media.vip.bf1.yahoo.com (72.30.35.9): icmp_seq=5 ttl=53 time=430 ms

--- yahoo.com ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4005ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 31.239/335.017/816.803/281.583 ms

Display a message if no response was received

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ping -O microsoft.com

Sample output

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PING microsoft.com (13.77.161.179) 56(84) bytes of data.
no answer yet for icmp_seq=1
no answer yet for icmp_seq=2
no answer yet for icmp_seq=3

--- microsoft.com ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 3056ms

Ping a host every 2 seconds

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ping -i 2 yahoo.com

Set package size

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ping -s 512 yahoo.com

Reference