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System Administration Guide, Volume 2

How to Find Out If a Remote System Is Operating

Find out if a remote system is operating by using the ping command. 


$ ping system-name | ip-address

system-name

The name of the remote system. 

ip-address

The IP address of the remote system. 

The ping command returns one of three messages:

Status Message 

Explanation 

system-name is alive

The system can be accessed over the network. 

ping:unknown host system-name

The system name is unknown. 

ping:no answer from system-name

The system is known, but is not currently operating.  

If the system you "ping" is located in a different domain, the return message can also contain routing information, which you can ignore.

The ping command has a time-out of 20 seconds. In other words, if it does not get a response within 20 seconds, it returns the third message. You can force ping to wait longer (or less) by entering a time-out value, in seconds:


$ ping system-name | ip-address time-out

For more information, see ping(1M).