UNIX ping Command Examples

How do I use UNIX ping command to troubleshoot UNIX networking problems?

Use the ping command to test the connection between the local server and a remote UNIX server. The ping command sends ICMP Echo Request (ECHO_REQUEST) packets to the host once per second. Each packet that is echoed back via an ICMP Echo Response packet is written to the standard output, including round-trip time.

Syntax

ping serverName
ping ServerIPAddress
ping 192.168.1.2
ping yahoo.com
ping server.cyberciti.biz

Example

Test the connection to server yahoo.com server, enter:

ping yahoo.com

Sample outputs:

PING yahoo.com (209.191.93.53) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from b1.www.vip.mud.yahoo.com (209.191.93.53): icmp_seq=1 ttl=50 time=311 ms
64 bytes from b1.www.vip.mud.yahoo.com (209.191.93.53): icmp_seq=2 ttl=50 time=310 ms
64 bytes from b1.www.vip.mud.yahoo.com (209.191.93.53): icmp_seq=3 ttl=50 time=309 ms
64 bytes from b1.www.vip.mud.yahoo.com (209.191.93.53): icmp_seq=4 ttl=50 time=310 ms
^C
--- yahoo.com ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 4 received, 20% packet loss, time 4007ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 309.710/310.718/311.594/0.966 ms