the section “Creating an End-System Network Configuration Table” for the ping basics. Here
we will focus on some of the options available under the ping command that are helpful in your
troubleshooting activities.
One of the most common ping options is the continuous ping. These pings send a continuous
stream of packets to the destination address. Setting up a continuous ping to an end system that
is having connectivity problems is a good way to see when the end system is once again reachable
over the network. In Windows systems, the flag to send a continuous ping is -t, and in the
Unix environment the flag is -s.
Another frequently used ping option used for troubleshooting is the record route option.
This records the path the packet is taking through the network and stores this information in
the IP header of the ping packet.
The record route option does require that the intervening routers and the
end station retain this information in the packet, and the hop count is limited
to nine.
In a Windows station, record route can be enabled with the -r #_of_hops_to_record
option. In the following example, the route will be recorded for up to nine hops, which is the
maximum value allowed:
C:\>ping -r 9 10.5.5.5
Pinging 10.5.5.5 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 10.5.5.5: bytes=32 time=86ms TTL=251
Route: 10.45.45.1 ->
10.10.10.66 ->
10.5.5.1 ->
10.5.5.5 ->
10.16.16.18 ->
10.10.9.56 ->
10.10.7.23 ->
10.56.21.3
Reply from 10.5.5.5: bytes=32 time=86ms TTL=251
Route: 10.45.45.1 ->
10.10.10.66 ->
10.5.5.1 ->
10.5.5.5 ->
10.16.16.18 ->
10.10.9.56 ->
10.10.7.23 ->
10.56.21.3
Reply from 10.5.5.5: bytes=32 time=85ms TTL=251
Route: 10.45.45.1 ->
10.10.10.66 ->
10.5.5.1 ->
10.5.5.5 ->
10.16.16.18 ->
10.10.9.56 ->
10.10.7.23 ->
10.56.21.3
Reply from 10.5.5.5: bytes=32 time=83ms TTL=251
Route: 10.45.45.1 ->
10.10.10.66 ->
10.5.5.1 ->
10.5.5.5 ->
10.16.16.18 ->
10.10.9.56 ->
10.10.7.23 ->
10.56.21.3
Ping statistics for 10.5.5.5:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 83ms, Maximum = 86ms, Average = 85ms
In Unix, the similar command option for record route is as follows:
unix1% ping -s -nRv 10.5.5.5
PING 10.5.5.5 (10.5.5.5): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 10.5.5.5: icmp_seq=0. time=123. ms
IP options:
10.5.5.5, 10.16.16.18, 10.10.9.56, 10.10.7.23,
10.56.21.3