ping(1M)                                                  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 speci-
       fied 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.  Otherwise, 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 successive transmissions. The default is  one  second.
                               See the discussion of the -s option.

       -L                      Turn  off  loopback of multicast packets. Normally, members are in the host group on the outgoing interface, 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 pack-
                               ets 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 expecting 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 unicast packets
                               for  IPv6.  The  default  interface  address for multicast packets is determined from the (unicast) 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 multicast 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  EXAM-
                               PLES. 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 attributes:

       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      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)

SunOS 5.10                                                          11 Mar 2004                                                           ping(1M)