Ping is one of the Linux commands for network administrators to check if a device is accessible in the network. You can use ping command in almost all operating systems like Windows, macOS and Linux. Though the command has lot of parameters, simply using ping with domain name or IP address is sufficient to get a response. In this article, we will explain various ways to use ping command using command line tools, apps and online interface.
Use of Ping Command
Here are some of the basic usages of ping command:
- To check if a particular IP address exists and is capable of accepting requests.
- Online availability of a website.
- Response time to check how fast a website responds when sending a request.
1. Ping a Website or IP Using Command Prompt in Windows
In the Windows operating system, several options are available with the ping command. Some of them have basic usage while others have more advanced usage parameters.
- Click Start menu icon or search in taskbar and type “cmd” in the search box.
- Hover on “Command Prompt” app in search results and select “Run as administrator” option. You will be redirected to Terminal app with a Command Prompt mode. Note that this is a default behavior from Windows 11 22H2 to use Terminal app as a default command line interface. You can also use ping command with PowerShell in Terminal app.
- Type ping and add the domain name, then press enter. Take google.com as an example of the domain and the command should be like below. Make sure to add a space between the ping and the domain name.
ping google.com
- Usually, the ping command sends four data packets and as a result, gets four responses with TTL (time to live). If the website is available, you will get all four replies as shown in the above image.
- Below the responses, you will see the statistics of packets sent, received and lost. In addition, you will also get the information related to the time it took to reach that website and respond back.
1.1. Ping Errors
Instead of using the domain name (google.com), you can also use the IP address of a server in ping command like ping 8.8.8.8. If the website or IP is not reachable, then you will see error messages in the result. For example, you will get a timeout error if ping is not able to get back replies from the server. This error means that the test took longer than the default time settings (4000 milliseconds). It happens due to various reasons like slow internet connection, site is down or there is a lot of traffic on the website resulting in timeout.
1.2. Ping Command Parameters
As mentioned, ping command has lot of parameters. Simply type ping/? and press enter in the Command Prompt. Now on the screen, you can see the options that are available along with their usage.
For example, ping -t google.com will continuously ping the site until you press “Control + C” to stop the command manually.
2. Using Ping Command in macOS
On Mac, you can use the Terminal app to run ping command. To test google.com, simply type ping google.com and press enter.
Unlike Windows, ping command in macOS will continuously ping the host until you stop manually. Press “Control + C” keys to stop the command and see the statistics of packets and round-trip time. Use info ping command to get the system user manual for ping command with all its parameters.
3. Ping a Website Using Online Tool
You can also use free online ping tools to check whether a domain/IP is working and accessible. You will find many online ping tools but we are recommending the free online ping tool from wormly. By providing a domain or IP, this tool will send the packet to the particular website and waits for its response. It sends packets eight times. You with get the result in the form of responses having the values for round trip time and average time. Let’s see how it works.
- Go to wormly remote ping testing tool page.
- In the search box, type the domain of the website that you want to ping. You can also type the IP address instead of domain name.
- We will test it by adding ‘google.com’ in the search box.
- Press “START REMOTE PING” to start the test.
- You will get eight responses from the test. You will also get information about transmitted and received, packet lost percentage and round trip time.
As you can see the ping results show packets transmitted, received, packet loss %, and round trip time. We get a packet lost 0% as the ping was successful in our case. In case of an unsuccessful ping, you will get a value other than 0 for it. After the result, you will get a URL from the tool for sharing the ping test results with others. You can upgrade to premium option to setup monitoring to continuously check the uptime and availability of the website.
4. Ping Multiple Websites Using an App
If you have a routine task of pinging multiple websites, then using a desktop app will make your life easier. You can ping any website or IP address by downloading an app from the Microsoft Store. A number of free apps are available on the store to download and we use the free Ping app for this purpose. This app will help you monitor the internet connection quality between your computer and the server.
- First of all, download Ping app from the Microsoft Store, that is free of cost. After downloading, click on “Open” to run the app in your system.
- A main window of the app will appear, add the domain name (example – google.com) in the “Address” box and click enter to perform the ping test.
- You will get the results of your ping test with details like IP address, success % and round trip time.
- You can get the ping test of more than a single host by clicking on the plus sign (+) in the top right corner of this window. For a second host, we have added ‘Youtube.com’ and pressed enter. Now the results of both hosts can be seen on the screen.
- The tool will continue to receive data until we stop it by clicking on the pause sign button. If you want to delete the results, click the cross sign button.
One interesting thing about this app is that it is not using conventional ICMP, instead it launches TCP/IP connection and in return exchanges the data. This is used to measure round trip time and packet lost %. You can add both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses to get the results.
Final Words
We hope this article helped you to check the website’s availability using ping command. Using Command Prompt in Windows or Terminal app in macOS are the straightforward options for anyone. However, if you want additional Windows and macOS. Follow these simple steps to learn to ping a website/IP within a few minutes.
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