Surfing the net has become a daily routine in the information world. I am asked by people at times why they could open some sites and others not. Then I plainly tell them that the reason for this could be varied like site experiencing over load due to high traffic, domain name servers (DNS) being down, some network connectivity problem, underwater cable problems and more. At times, it seems that the site is responding so slow than the usual.

I often use ping command to check where the problem is. It can tell whether the remote site can be reached or not. It indicates the speed of data transfer between your PC and the remote site. It shows also whether the DNS is working properly or not. Those are the common reason why I use ping.

Ping works like a sonar. It sends out a series of messages to a remote site and waits for the response.

Ping is a command that works on windows, linux, etc. it’s actually system independent. It runs in command line mode.

To use ping in windows:

Click Start->Run
In the run dialogue box type cmd and click Ok
MS DOS command line window will be opened

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>cd\

then press ENTER

type the following on the command prompt to check the remote site www.techxplore.net:

C:\>ping www.techxplore.net

Pinging techxplore.net [72.232.43.82] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 72.232.43.82: bytes=32 time=345ms TTL=42
Reply from 72.232.43.82: bytes=32 time=350ms TTL=42
Reply from 72.232.43.82: bytes=32 time=333ms TTL=42
Reply from 72.232.43.82: bytes=32 time=341ms TTL=42

Ping statistics for 72.232.43.82:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 333ms, Maximum = 350ms, Average = 342ms

To use ping in linux fedora:

Click Applications->System Tools->Terminal
In the terminal window
type the following on the command prompt to check the remote site www.techxplore.net:

[tony@localhost ~]$ ping www.techxplore.net -c 4
PING techxplore.net (72.232.43.82) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 82.43.232.72.static.reverse.ltdomains.com (72.232.43.82): icmp_seq=1 ttl=44 time=408 ms
64 bytes from 82.43.232.72.static.reverse.ltdomains.com (72.232.43.82): icmp_seq=2 ttl=44 time=408 ms
64 bytes from 82.43.232.72.static.reverse.ltdomains.com (72.232.43.82): icmp_seq=3 ttl=44 time=408 ms
64 bytes from 82.43.232.72.static.reverse.ltdomains.com (72.232.43.82): icmp_seq=4 ttl=44 time=408 ms

—- techxplore.net ping statistics —-
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 2999ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 408.298/408.562/408.832/0.815 ms

The ping command in Windows pales in comparison with its Linux counter part. In Linux there are more than tripple the command line parameter as there is in Window though both still have the basic use of determining whether a remote site is up or not, the DNS server is working or not or is there a network connectivity problem. Ping is for me a very useful firsthand tool in trouble shooting a network problem. Cannot open a site check it with ping.