The PING(Packet Internet Gropher) Utility

The ping utility is used for testing connections. With the help of ping command we can test whether a connection is still active or not. The ping command is available on most operating systems that implement TCP/IP.

The ping command is used to query another system to ensure that a connection is still active. The ping program sends an ICMP message to the remote and waits for a reply. If the destination machine's IP software receives the ICMP request,it issues an echo reply immediately. The sending machine continues to send an echo request until the ping program is terminated. After termination ping displays a set of statistics as shown below.

We can also use PING to isolate network hardware problems and incompatible configurations. You can use the PING like below.

1. Ping the Loopback address to verify that TCP/IP is installed and configured correctly on the local computer.

ping 127.0.0.1

2. Ping the IP Address of the local computer to verify that it was added to the network correctly.

If a computer is on a network and it's IP Address is 192.168.1.3 then use ping command like this.

ping 192.168.1.3

3. Ping the IP Address of the Gateway to verify that the default Gateway is functioning and that you can communicate with a local host on the local network.

If the default Gateway is 192.168.1.1 then use the ping command like this.

ping 192.168.1.1

4. Ping the IP Address of a remote host to verify that you can communicate through a router.
By default PING waits 1000 ms(1 second) for each response to be returned. If it does not receive the response then it will display Request Timed Out message like this.

Note: Articles on Windows NT,Windows 2000 Server,Windows 2003 Server will come soon on my blog under the same NETWORKING section.