Tutorial

There is a Ping program built into Windows 98 that is run from the DOS prompt.
It has the following format:

C:\>ping

To ping a host you must type the following at the dos prompt:

C:\>ping [hostname]

The resulting output shows us:

• Also a reply from the [IP address] showing:

• and also the ping statistics are shown:

This is the standard default format for this Ping program and for this instance shows that the host was contactable and took an average of 155 milliseconds to reply.

There are three alternatives to the number of pings purformed:

1. This program by default sends 4 individual IP datagrams ICMP messages as shown in the dos screen above.
2. The [ -t ] option pings the specified host until stopped.
3. The [ -n count ] option pings the specified host the number of times specified by count.

C:\>ping -n [count] [hostname]

The options provided with this program can be used to obtain other information.

• Ping can be used to obtain the host domain name when only the IP addess is available as follows:

C:\>ping -a [IP address]

Ping can also record the route as follows:

C:\>ping -r [count] [hostname]

This ping was set to show 3 hops but only shows 1 hop.
This is because the host and the server are on the same connection so that no hop was required.
The next screen shows a different host within the internet being pinged and the associated routes.
The -n count option was used to provide 1 ping only.

C:\>ping -n [count] -r [count]