Some of the less-known ping types you should know

Shubham PareekShubham Pareek
2 min read

Normal Ping output:

> ping 192.168.0.120

PING 192.168.0.120 (192.168.0.100): 56 data bytes

64 bytes from 192.168.0.120: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.047 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.120: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.056 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.120: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.045 ms

Ansible Ping output:

> ansible 192.168.0.100 -m ping

> 192.168.0.100 | SUCCESS => {

"changed": false,

  "ping": "pong"

}

Have you ever wondered why it is different?

The Normal ping uses ICMP to check network connectivity, while Ansible's ping is a module that ensures connectivity by running Python on the remote host and returning a "pong" message.

It's more of a connectivity and system readiness check rather than just a network test.

Apart from these two major pings, some of the less-known ping types you should understand:

Flood Ping
Sends packets as fast as possible, useful for stress testing or debugging.

ping -f 192.168.1.1

Ping with a Set Number of Requests
Limits the number of ping requests sent.

ping -c 4 192.168.1.1

TTL Ping
Limits the Time To Live (TTL) value of a packet, often used in debugging routing loops or traceroute.

ping -t 5 192.168.1.1

Ping Broadcast
Pings every host on the local network.

ping -b 192.168.1.255

Reverse Ping (Windows)
Windows-specific, checks if another host can ping your machine.

ping -r 9 192.168.1.1

Hope this was useful for all of you. Happy Learning!

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Shubham Pareek
Shubham Pareek