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Troubleshoot Ping Host

About Ping Host Page

You are here: Device Administration > Tools > Ping Host.

The ping diagnostic tool sends a series of ICMP "echo request" packets to the specified remote host.

The receipt of such packets will usually result in the remote host replying with an ICMP "echo response." Note that some hosts are configured not to respond to ICMP "echo requests," so a lack of responses does not necessarily represent a connectivity problem. Also, some firewalls block the ICMP packet types that ping uses, so you may find that you are not able to ping outside your local network.

You can ping a host to verify that the host can be reached over the network or not.

To use the ping host tool:

  1. Enter the information specified in Table 1 to troubleshoot the issue.

    The Remote Host field is the only required field.

  2. Click the expand icon next to Advanced options.

  3. Click Start.

    The results of the ping operation are displayed in Table 2. If no options are specified, each ping response is in the following format:

  4. Click OK to stop the ping operation before it is complete.

Table 1: Ping Host Troubleshooting Options

Field

Action

Remote Host

Type the hostname or IP address of the host to ping.
Advanced Options

Don't Resolve Addresses

  • To suppress the display of the hop hostnames along t the path, select the check box.

  • To display the hop hostnames along the path, clear the check box.

Interface

From the list, select the interface on which ping requests are sent. If you select any, the ping requests are sent on all interfaces.

Count

From the list, select the number of ping requests to send.

Don't Fragment

  • To set the don't fragment (DF) bit in the IP header of the ping request packet, select the check box.

  • To clear the DF bit in the IP header of the ping request packet, clear the check box.

Record Route

  • To record and display the path of the packet, select the check box.

  • To suppress the recording and display of the path of the packet, clear the check box.

Type-of-Service

From the list, select the decimal value of the ToS in the IP header of the ping request packet.

Routing Instance

From the list, select the routing instance name for the ping attempt.

Interval

From the list, select the interval in seconds, between the transmission of each ping request.

Packet Size

Type the size, in bytes, of the packet. The size can be from 0 through 65468. The device adds 8 bytes to the size of the ICMP header.

Source Address

Type the source IP address of the ping request packet.

Time-to-Live

From the list, select the TTL hop count for the ping request packet.

Bypass Routing

  • To bypass the routing table and send the ping requests to hosts on the specified interface only, select the check box.

  • To route the ping requests using the routing table, clear the check box.

    If the routing table is not used, ping requests are sent only to hosts on the interface specified in the Interface box. If the host is not on that interface, ping responses are not sent.
Table 2: Ping Host Results and Output Summary

Field

Function

bytes bytes from ip-address

  • bytes—Size of ping response packet, which is equal to the value you entered in the Packet Size box, plus 8.

  • ip-address—IP address of destination host that sent the ping response packet.

icmp_seq=0

icmp_seq=number

time—Sequence Number field of the ping response packet. You can use this value to match the ping response to the corresponding ping request.

ttl=number

number—TTL hop-count value of the ping response packet.

time=time

time—Total time between the sending of the ping request packet and the receiving of the ping response packet, in milliseconds. This value is also called round-trip time.

number packets transmitted

number—Number of ping requests (probes) sent to host.

number packets received

number—Number of ping responses received from host.

percentage packet loss

percentage—Number of ping responses divided by the number of ping requests, specified as a percentage.

round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = min-time/avg-time/max-time/std-dev ms

  • min-time—Minimum round-trip time (see time=time field in this table).

  • avg-time—Average round-trip time.

  • max-time—Maximum round-trip time.

  • std-dev—Standard deviation of the round-trip times.

Output = Packet loss of 100 percent

If the device does not receive ping responses from the destination host (the output shows a packet loss of 100 percent), one of the following explanations might apply:

  • The host is not operational.

  • There are network connectivity problems between the device and the host.

  • The host might be configured to ignore ICMP echo requests.

  • The host might be configured with a firewall filter that blocks ICMP echo requests or ICMP echo responses.

  • The size of the ICMP echo request packet exceeds the MTU of a host along the path.

  • The value you selected in the TTL box was less than the number of hops in the path to the host, in which case the host might reply with an ICMP error message.

For more information about ICMP, see RFC 792, Internet Control Message Protocol.

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