System Administration Commands ping(1M)
NAME
ping - send ICMP (ICMP6) ECHO_REQUEST packets to network
hosts
SYNOPSIS
/usr/sbin/ping host [timeout]
/usr/sbin/ping -s [-l | -U] [-adlLnrRv] [-A addr_family]
[-c traffic_class] [-g gateway [ -g gateway...]] [-
F flow_label] [-I interval] [-i interface] [-P tos] [-
p port] [-t ttl] host [data_size] [npackets]
DESCRIPTION
The utility ping utilizes the ICMP (ICMP6 in IPv6)
protocol's ECHO_REQUEST datagram to elicit an ICMP (ICMP6)
ECHO_RESPONSE from the specified host or network gateway. If
host responds, ping will print:
host is alive
on the standard output and exit. Otherwise, after timeout
seconds, it will write:
no answer from host
The default value of timeout is 20 seconds.
When you specify the s flag, sends one datagram per second
(adjust with -I) and prints one line of output for every
ECHO_RESPONSE that it receives. ping produces no output if
there is no response. In this second form, ping computes
round trip times and packet loss statistics; it displays a
summary of this information upon termination or timeout. The
default data_size is 56 bytes, or you can specify a size
with the data_size command-line argument. If you specify
the optional npackets, ping sends ping requests until it
either sends npackets requests or receives npackets
replies.
When using ping for fault isolation, first ping the local
host to verify that the local network interface is running.
OPTIONS
The following options are supported:
-A addr_family Specify the address family of the
target host. addr_family can be
either inet or inet6. Address family
determines which protocol to use.
For an argument of inet, IPv4 is
used. For inet6, IPv6 is used.
By default, if the name of a host is
provided, not the literal IP
address, and a valid IPv6 address
exists in the name service database,
ping will use this address. Other-
wise, if the name service database
contains an IPv4 address, it will
try the IPv4 address.
Specify the address family inet or
inet6 to override the default
behavior. If the argument specified
is inet, ping will use the IPv4
address associated with the host
name. If none exists, ping will
state that the host is unknown and
exit. It does not try to determine
if an IPv6 address exists in the
name service database.
If the specified argument is inet6,
ping uses the IPv6 address that is
associated with the host name. If
none exists, ping states that the
host is unknown and exits.
-F flow_label Specify the flow label of probe
packets. The value must be an
integer in the range from 0 to
1048575. This option is valid only
on IPv6.
-I interval Turn on the statistics mode and
specify the interval between succes-
sive transmissions. The default is
one second. See the discussion of
the -s option.
-L Turn off loopback of multicast pack-
ets. Normally, members are in the
host group on the outgoing inter-
face, a copy of the multicast
packets will be delivered to the
local machine.
-P tos Set the type of service (tos) in
probe packets to the specified
value. The default is zero. The
value must be an integer in the
range from 0 to 255. Gateways also
in the path can route the probe
packet differently, depending upon
the value of tos that is set in the
probe packet. This option is valid
only on IPv4.
-R Record route. Sets the IPv4 record
route option, which stores the route
of the packet inside the IPv4
header. The contents of the record
route are only printed if the -v and
-s options are given. They are only
set on return packets if the target
host preserves the record route
option across echos, or the -l
option is given. This option is
valid only on IPv4.
-U Send UDP packets instead of ICMP
(ICMP6) packets. ping sends UDP
packets to consecutive ports expect-
ing to receive back ICMP (ICMP6)
PORT_UNREACHABLE from the target
host.
-a ping all addresses, both IPv4 and
IPv6, of the multihomed destination.
The output appears as if ping has
been run once for each IP address of
the destination. If this option is
used together with -A, ping probes
only the addresses that are of the
specified address family. When used
with the -s option and npackets is
not specified, ping continuously
probes the destination addresses in
a round robin fashion. If npackets
is specified, ping sends npackets
number of probes to each IP address
of the destination and then exits.
-c traffic_class Specify the traffic class of probe
packets. The value must be an
integer in the range from 0 to 255.
Gateways along the path can route
the probe packet differently,
depending upon the value of
traffic_class set in the probe
packet. This option is valid only on
IPv6.
-d Set the SO_DEBUG socket option.
-g gateway Specify a loose source route gateway
so that the probe packet goes
through the specified host along the
path to the target host. The maximum
number of gateways is 8 for IPv4 and
127 for IPv6. Note that some factors
such as the link MTU can further
limit the number of gateways for
IPv6.
-i interface_address Specify the outgoing interface
address to use for multicast packets
for IPv4 and both multicast and uni-
cast packets for IPv6. The default
interface address for multicast
packets is determined from the (uni-
cast) routing tables.
interface_address can be a literal
IP address, for example,
10.123.100.99, or an interface name,
for example, eri0, or an interface
index, for example 2.
-l Use to send the probe packet to the
given host and back again using
loose source routing. Usually
specified with the -R option. If any
gateways are specified using -g,
they are visited twice, both to and
from the destination. This option is
ignored if the -U option is used.
-n Show network addresses as numbers.
ping normally does a reverse name
lookup on the IP addresses it
extracts from the packets received.
The -n option blocks the reverse
lookup, so ping prints IP addresses
instead of host names.
-p port Set the base UDP port number used in
probes. This option is used with the
-U option. The default base port
number is 33434. The ping utility
starts setting the destination port
number of UDP packets to this base
and increments it by one at each
probe.
-r Bypass the normal routing tables and
send directly to a host on an
attached network. If the host is not
on a directly attached network, an
error is returned. This option can
be used to ping a local host through
an interface that has been dropped
by the router daemon. See
in.routed(1M).
-s Send one datagram per second and
collect statistics.
-t ttl Specify the IPv4 time to live, or
IPv6 hop limit, for unicast and mul-
ticast packets. The default time to
live (hop limit) for unicast packets
can be set with the ndd module,
/dev/icmp, using the icmp_ipv4_ttl
variable for IPv4 and the
icmp_ipv6_hoplimit variable for
IPv6. The default time to live (hop
limit) for multicast is one hop. See
EXAMPLES. For further information,
seendd(1M).
-v Verbose output. List any ICMP
(ICMP6) packets, other than replies
from the target host.
OPERANDS
host The network host
EXAMPLES
Example 1: Using ping With IPv6
This example shows ping sending probe packets to all the
IPv6 addresses of the host xyz, one at a time. It sends an
ICMP6 ECHO_REQUEST every second until the user interrupts
it.
istanbul% ping -s -A inet6 -a xyz
PING xyz: 56 data bytes
64 bytes from xyz (4::114:a00:20ff:ab3d:83ed): icmp_seq=0. time=0.479 ms
64 bytes from xyz (fec0::114:a00:20ff:ab3d:83ed): icmp_seq=1. time=0.843 ms
64 bytes from xyz (4::114:a00:20ff:ab3d:83ed): icmp_seq=2. time=0.516 ms
64 bytes from xyz (fec0::114:a00:20ff:ab3d:83ed): icmp_seq=3. time=4.94 ms
64 bytes from xyz (4::114:a00:20ff:ab3d:83ed): icmp_seq=4. time=0.485 ms
64 bytes from xyz (fec0::114:a00:20ff:ab3d:83ed): icmp_seq=5. time=2.20 ms
^C
----xyz PING Statistics----
6 packets transmitted, 6 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip (ms) min/avg/stddev = 0.479/1.58/4.94/1.8
Example 2: Using ndd to Set the icmp_ipv6_hoplimit
This example shows the ndd module, /dev/icmp, used to set
the icmp_ipv6_hoplimit.
# ndd -set /dev/icmp icmp_ipv6_hoplimit 100
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned:
0 Successful operation; the machine is alive.
non-zero An error has occurred. Either a malformed
argument has been specified, or the machine
was not alive.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attri-
butes:
____________________________________________________________
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
|_____________________________|_____________________________|
| Availability | SUNWbip |
|_____________________________|_____________________________|
SEE ALSO
ifconfig(1M), in.routed(1M), ndd(1M), netstat(1M),
rpcinfo(1M), traceroute(1M), attributes(5), icmp(7P),
icmp6(7P)
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