PING COMMAND
Ping command is one of the most widely used utilities that used in networking. Ping command is a simple tool is used to troubleshoot networking issue such as test network connectivity. We can test connected to a local area network or even it is connected to internet and also we can check test network interface card working correctly or not also used DNS issues test DNS name resolution issues.
Let’s ping IP address of a host. This host could be any network device such as computer, server, router or local area network or over the internet. Here we are going to ping server in our local area network open command prompt type ping along with IP address of the server then press enter. Ping utility will send four data packets to the IP address of the server. Our computer will wait for response then the server will send the data packets back as a reply.
This reply is called echo reply request. This reply informs you what’s happening server with we ping. We received a reply that is a good sign that is network connectivity between the computer and server is good that server is local area network or over the internet. The four packets were sent and four packets received.
If we ping the same server this time we didn’t get reply that means server didn’t reply back there is no network connectivity between our computer and server. This could be severed for different reason.
That means server is powered down or also server is running but its firewall is blocking or ping request for this reason turn off the firewall.
What happen when you trying to ping a host and not all data packets are reply back to you?
Ping a host our computer sends a four data packets but sometimes you may receive only 1, 2 or 3 packets back instead of four packets. This is called packet lost.
This packet loss can be done for several reasons.
Network congestion due to lot of traffic data packets will get dropped
Faulty hardware’s – such as bad cables, bad wires, bad network card, bad network connections or bad modem
In other types we want to ping remote server on the internet if we got a message destination host unreachable.
That means the router destination cannot be found. That mean router doesn’t have any information how to route data to destination or also remote server down or disconnected on network or our computer is not connected to network.
Let’s see ping command in typical scenario suppose there is no interconnect connection because they access because they can access any web page within their computer which is very common issue. First thing is to check using ping utility to see the connection of internet or not. Even before checking the modem or router or any cable connection check ping test.
Open command prompt ping website as yahoo.com. Notice in this method ping the domain name yahoo.com not an IP address because by doing this way testing name, resolution issue related to DNS issues. We are hot having yahoo IP address by ping yahoo.com ping is successful we know it is connected to internet. We got successful reply from yahoo.com.
All of our hardware, cable, network card, router, all are working correctly including our internet service provider. The reason for bringing web pages related to software issue not hardware. The problem is mostly in the internet browser or a firewall issue. By using ping test it saves the time by checking the hardware’s.
Suppose the ping is not successful even before started to check hardware we can used ping command by other test. Such as testing the network interface card is working correctly. This is called loop back test.
The loop back test is sending out signals back to your computer testing purpose. Open command prompt type ping space loop back IP address 127.0.0.1 type ping local host. The ping is successful the network card is working properly. The loop back test is failed the problem with your network interface card.
PING command also can be to test DNS name resolution issues. DNS resolves domain names to IP addresses. Suppose while checking ping yahoo.com please check the name and try again. This could be a DNS issue. Our computer could not resolve the domain name to an IP address. Next try to ping the IP address instead you know already. Most of us don’t know IP address we can type DNS IP address as 8.8.8.8.if the ping was successful it confirms DNS issue in computer can ping IP address but can’t ping domain name.
To solve this problem let’s try with some other methods. Flush DNS type IP configuration/flush DNS in command prompt or check DNS settings network card configuration.
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