User manual

Chapter 5. The Tools Menu
• Ping, page 70
The Tools menu provide access to features which can be helpful in overall system operation.
The sections that follow describe the options in this menu in the order they appear.
5.1. Ping
The ICMP ping protocol provides a simple query/response tool to determine if a particular network
component is alive. A ping request ask the question "are you there" on a given IP address and the
response is either "yes I am" or there is no response and the request times out.
The ping page in the NetDefendOS web interface provides a simple way to issue a ping command to
any IP address and also to repeat the ping request a certain number of times with a certain size of
packet. The image below shows the ping dialog while waiting for a response.
The response from a ping is expressed as the percentage of packet loss. Packet loss is 100% if no
response is received as shown below.
In the case of NetDefendOS, a response to a ping request on a particular interface depends on if the
administrator has enabled ping responses or not. This is discussed further in Section 3.1,
“Administration”.
Initiating Ping Requests from the CLI
An alternative method of issuing ping requests is to use the CLI ping command. This command is
described in Appendix A, CLI Reference.
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