17.3. Using the ping Utility

Ping is the most basic TCP/IP utility, and it's included with most TCP/IP stacks for most platforms. Windows, again, is no exception. In most cases, ping is a command-line utility, although there are many GUI implementations available. You use the ping utility for two primary purposes:

  • To find out if a host is responding

  • To find out if you can reach a host

Here's the syntax:

Ping shostname or IP address

If you ping any station that has an IP address, the ICMP that's part of that particular host's TCP/IP stack will respond to the request. This ICMP test and response looks something like this:

ping 204.153.163.2 Pinging 204.153.163.2 with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 204.153.163.2: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=128 Reply from ...

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