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)