HP-UX Reference (11i v1 05/09) - 1M System Administration Commands N-Z (vol 4)

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ping(1M) ping(1M)

If the address-family is speciﬁed, and host is an Internet address, the address family of

the Internet address must be the same as that speciﬁed in the address-family option. If

the address-family is not speciﬁed, and host is a symbolic name, an attempt will be made

to resolve host into an IPv4 address ﬁrst. If that fails, a second attempt will be made to

resolve host into an IPv6 address.

The ping command does not accept IPv4-mapped IPv6 addresses. To ping an IPv4 node,

an IPv4 address should be used. IPv4-mapped IPv6 addresses are used to address IPv4-

only nodes from an IPv6 node in a socket program only. IPv4-mapped IPv6 addresses are

always converted to an IPv4 address before they are used in packets sent over the net-

work.

If a system does not respond as expected, the route might be conﬁgured incorrectly on

the local or remote system or on an intermediate gateway, or there might be some other

network failure. Normally, host is the address assigned to a local or remote network

interface.

(inet only) If host is a broadcast address, all systems that receive the broadcast should

respond. Normally, these are only systems that have a network interface on the same

network as the local interface sending the ICMP Echo Request.

If host is a multicast address, only systems that have joined the multicast group should

respond. These may be distant systems if the

-t option is speciﬁed, and there is a mul-

ticast router on the network directly connected to the interface speciﬁed by the -i

option.

packet-size The size of the transmitted packet, in bytes. By default (when packet-size is not

speciﬁed), the size of transmitted packets is 64 bytes. The minimum value allowed for

packet-size is 8 bytes, and the maximum value is 4095 bytes. If packet-size is smaller

than 16 bytes, there is not enough room for timing information. In that case, the round-

trip times are not displayed.

-n count The number of packets ping will transmit before terminating. The -n is not needed if

also specifying packet-size. Range: zero to 2147483647. The default is zero, in which

case ping sends packets until interrupted.

-m timeout Override the default timeout value (10 seconds) which ping uses to timeout (in seconds)

when a host or network is unreachable. This option is valid only with the -n option or

when count is speciﬁed. The

-m option should not be used with count equal to 0.

The

-m option is not effective for reachable hosts or networks.

Using ping for Fault Isolation

When using ping for fault isolation, ﬁrst specify a local address for host to verify that the local network

interface is working correctly. Then specify host and gateway addresses further and further away to deter-

mine the point of failure.

ping sends one datagram per second, and it normally writes one line of output

for every ICMP Echo Response that is received. No output is produced if there are no responses. If an

optional count is given, only the speciﬁed number of requests is sent. Round-trip times and packet loss

statistics are computed. When all responses have been received or the command times out (if the count

option is speciﬁed), or if the command is terminated with a

SIGINT, a brief summary is displayed.

This command is intended for use in testing, managing and measuring network performance. It should be

used primarily to isolate network failures. Because of the load it could impose on the network, it is con-

sidered discourteous to use ping unnecessarily during normal operations or from automated scripts.

RETURN VALUE

ping exits with one of the following values:

0 On success.

1 On failure such as unknown host, illegal packet size, etc.

2 On a unreachable host or network.

AUTHOR

ping was developed in the Public Domain.

HP-UX 11i Version 1: September 2005 − 2 − Hewlett-Packard Company Section 1M−−681