Examples—Checking the Response of Hosts on the Network

The simplest version of ping sends a single packet to a host on the network. If ping receives the correct response, it prints the message host is alive.

$ ping elvis
elvis is alive

With the -s option, ping sends one datagram per second to a host. It then prints each response and the time that was required for the round trip. For example:

$ ping -s pluto
64 bytes from pluto (123.456.78.90): icmp_seq=0. time=10. ms
64 bytes from pluto (123.456.78.90): icmp_seq=5. time=0. ms
64 bytes from pluto (123.456.78.90): icmp_seq=6. time=0. ms
^C
----pluto PING Statistics----
8 packets transmitted, 8 packets received, 0% packet loss
 
round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 0/2/10