Ping Tool For Mac

Ping Tool For Mac
ping
Original author(s)Mike Muuss
Developer(s)Various open-source and commercial developers
Initial release1983; 36 years ago
PlatformCross-platform
TypeCommand
LicensePublic-domain, BSD, GPL, MIT

Ping is a computer network administration software utility used to test the reachability of a host on an Internet Protocol (IP) network. It is available for virtually all operating systems that have networking capability, including most embedded network administration software.

  1. Ping is a computer network administration software utility used to test the reachability of a host on an Internet Protocol (IP) network. It measures the round-trip time for messages sent from the originating host to a destination computer that are echoed back to the source.
  2. On a Mac computer you can send a ping using the Terminal or through the Network Utility application. Using the Terminal to Send a Ping The terminal is a command line interface that can be used for all kinds of things, including for sending a ping.

Ping measures the round-trip time for messages sent from the originating host to a destination computer that are echoed back to the source. The name comes from active sonar terminology that sends a pulse of sound and listens for the echo to detect objects under water.[1]

Ping operates by sending Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) echo request packets to the target host and waiting for an ICMP echo reply. The program reports errors, packet loss, and a statistical summary of the results, typically including the minimum, maximum, the mean round-trip times, and standard deviation of the mean.

Ping tool free download - DNSChanger Removal Tool, Flashback Removal Tool, MiniTool Mac Data Recovery, and many more programs. About the ARP Ping Tool. The ARP Ping Tool gives you a way to 'Ping' a MAC address on your LAN using ARP packets. This tool is functionally equivalent to the arping open source command line utility. Ping is used to test your internet speed and quality. In this feature we’re going to look at network ping testing, and how to do a ping test from your Apple Mac. Ping is a technique used.

The command-line options of the ping utility and its output vary between the numerous implementations. Options may include the size of the payload, count of tests, limits for the number of network hops (TTL) that probes traverse, and interval between the requests. Many systems provide a companion utility ping6, for testing on Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) networks, which implement ICMPv6.

  • 4Message format

History[edit]

The ping utility was written by Mike Muuss in December 1983 during his employment at the Ballistic Research Laboratory, now the US Army Research Laboratory. Created as a tool to troubleshoot problems in an IP network, Mike Muuss was inspired by a remark by David Mills on using ICMP echo packets for IP network diagnosis and measurements.[2] The author named it after the sound that sonar makes, since its methodology is analogous to sonar's echo location.[1][3] The first released version was public domain software while all subsequent versions were licensed under the BSD license. Ping was first included in 4.3BSD.[4] The FreeDOS version was developed by Erick Engelke and is licensed under the GPL.[5] Tim Crawford developed the ReactOS version. It is licensed under the MIT License.[6]

RFC 1122 prescribes that any host must process ICMP echo requests and issue echo replies in return.[7]

Invocation example[edit]

The following is the output of running ping on Linux for sending five probes to the target host www.example.com:

The output lists each probe message and the results obtained. Finally it lists the statistics of the entire test. In this example, the shortest round trip time was 9.674 ms, the average was 10.968 ms, and the maximum value was 11.726 ms. The measurement had a standard deviation of 0.748 ms.

Error indications[edit]

In cases of no response from the target host, most implementations display either nothing or periodically print notifications about timing out. Possible ping results indicating a problem include the following:

  • H,!N or !P – host, network or protocol unreachable
  • S – source route failed
  • F – fragmentation needed
  • U or !W – destination network/host unknown
  • I – source host is isolated
  • A – communication with destination network administratively prohibited
  • Z – communication with destination host administratively prohibited
  • Q – for this ToS the destination network is unreachable
  • T – for this ToS the destination host is unreachable
  • X – communication administratively prohibited
  • V – host precedence violation
  • C – precedence cutoff in effect

In case of error, the target host or an intermediate router sends back an ICMP error message, for example 'host unreachable' or 'TTL exceeded in transit'. In addition, these messages include the first eight bytes of the original message (in this case header of the ICMP echo request, including the quench value), so the ping utility can match responses to originating queries.[8]

Message format[edit]

Ping Tool Macbook

ICMP packet[edit]

IPv4 Datagram
Bits 0–7Bits 8–15Bits 16–23Bits 24–31
Header
(20 bytes)
Version/IHLType of serviceLength
Identificationflags and offset
Time To Live (TTL)ProtocolHeader Checksum
Source IP address
Destination IP address
ICMP Header
(8 bytes)
Type of messageCodeChecksum
Header Data
ICMP Payload
(optional)
Payload Data
IPv6 Datagram
Bits 0–3Bits 4–7Bits 8–11Bits 12–15Bits 16–23Bits 24–31
Header
(40 bytes)
VersionTraffic ClassFlow Label
Payload LengthNext HeaderHop Limit
Source Address
Destination Address
ICMP6 Header
(8 bytes)
Type of messageCodeChecksum
Header Data
ICMP6 Payload
(optional)
Payload Data

Generic composition of an ICMP packet:[9]

  • IPv4 Header (in blue): protocol set to 1 (ICMP) and Type of Service set to 0.
  • IPv6 Header (in blue): Next Header set to 58 (ICMP6)
  • ICMP Header (in red):
    • Type of ICMP message (8 bits)
    • Code (8 bits)
    • Checksum (16 bits), calculated with the ICMP part of the packet (the IP header is not used). It is the 16-bit one's complement of the one's complement sum of the ICMP message starting with the Type field[10]
    • Header Data (32 bits) field, which in this case (ICMP echo request and replies), will be composed of identifier (16 bits) and sequence number (16 bits).
  • ICMP Payload: payload for the different kind of answers; can be an arbitrary length, left to implementation detail. However, the packet including IP and ICMP headers must be less than the maximum transmission unit of the network or risk being fragmented.

Echo request[edit]

The echo request ('ping') is an ICMP/ICMP6 message.

0001020304050607080910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031
Type = 8(IPv4, ICMP) 128(IPv6,ICMP6)Code = 0Checksum
IdentifierSequence Number
Payload

The Identifier and Sequence Number can be used by the client to match the reply with the request that caused the reply. In practice, most Linux systems use a unique identifier for every ping process, and sequence number is an increasing number within that process. Windows uses a fixed identifier, which varies between Windows versions, and a sequence number that is only reset at boot time.

Echo reply[edit]

Free Ping Tool For Mac

The echo reply is an ICMP message generated in response to an echo request; it is mandatory for all hosts, and must include the exact payload received in the request.

0001020304050607080910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031
Type = 0(IPv4,ICMP) 129(IPv6,ICMP6)Code = 0Checksum
IdentifierSequence Number
Payload
  • The identifier and sequence number can be used by the client to associate each echo request with its reply.

Payload[edit]

The payload of the packet is generally filled with ASCII characters, as the output of the tcpdump utility shows in the last 32 bytes of the following example (after the eight-byte ICMP header starting with 0x0800):

The payload may include a timestamp indicating the time of transmission and a sequence number, which are not found in this example. This allows ping to compute the round trip time in a stateless manner without needing to record the time of transmission of each packet.

The payload may also include a magic packet for the Wake-on-LAN protocol, but the minimum payload in that case is longer than shown. The Echo Request typically does not receive any reply if the host was sleeping in hibernation state, but the host still wakes up from sleep state if its interface is configured to accept wakeup requests. If the host is already active and configured to allow replies to incoming ICMP Echo Request packets, the returned reply should include the same payload. This may be used to detect that the remote host was effectively woken up, by repeating a new request after some delay to allow the host to resume its network services. If the host was just sleeping in low power active state, a single request wakes up that host just enough to allow its Echo Reply service to reply instantly if that service was enabled. The host does not need to completely wake up all devices, and may return to low power mode after a short delay. Such configuration may be used to avoid a host to enter in hibernation state, with much longer wake up delay, after some time passed in low power active mode.[citation needed]

Security considerations[edit]

To conduct a denial-of-service attack, an attacker may send ping requests as fast as possible, possibly overwhelming the victim with ICMP echo requests. This technique is called a ping flood.

Ping requests to multiple addresses, ping sweeps, may be used to obtain a list of all hosts on a network.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ abMike Muuss. 'The Story of the PING Program'. U.S. Army Research Laboratory. Archived from the original on 20 June 1997. Retrieved 8 September 2010. I named it after the sound that a sonar makes, inspired by the whole principle of echo-location.Cite uses deprecated parameter |dead-url= (help)
  2. ^'The Story of the PING Program', Mike Muuss
  3. ^Salus, Peter (1994). A Quarter Century of UNIX. Addison-Wesley. ISBN978-0-201-54777-1.
  4. ^'man page ping section 8'. www.manpagez.com.
  5. ^'ibiblio.org FreeDOS Package -- ping (Networking)'. www.ibiblio.org.
  6. ^'A free Windows-compatible Operating System. Contribute to reactos/reactos development by creating an account on GitHub'. 8 August 2019 – via GitHub.
  7. ^'RFC 1122 - Requirements for Internet Hosts -- Communication Layers'. p. 42. Retrieved 19 March 2012. Every host MUST implement an ICMP Echo server function that receives Echo Requests and sends corresponding Echo Replies.
  8. ^'ICMP: Internet Control Message Protocol'. repo.hackerzvoice.net. 13 January 2000. Retrieved 4 December 2014.
  9. ^'RFC 792 - Internet Control Message Protocol'. Tools.ietf.org. Retrieved 2 February 2014.
  10. ^'RFC Sourcebook's page on ICMP'. Retrieved 20 December 2010.

Further reading[edit]

  • Dyson, Peter (1995). Mastering OS/2 Warp. Sybex. ISBN978-0782116632.
  • John Paul Mueller (2007). Windows Administration at the Command Line for Windows Vista, Windows 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 2000. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN978-0470165799.
  • McElhearn, Kirk (2006). The Mac OS X Command Line: Unix Under the Hood. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN978-0470113851.

External links[edit]

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Guide to Windows Commands
  • ping(1M) – Solaris 10 System Administration Commands Reference Manual
  • ping(8) – FreeBSD System Manager's Manual
  • Linux – Reference, The Single UNIX Specification, Issue 7 from The Open Group
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