PING (Packet Internet Groper) is a program utilized to check whether a specific network host is online by transport an ICMP (Internet control message protocol) echo request and waiting for a reply. It is utilized for solving connectivity problems between network devices like servers, routers, workstations and printers. You can ping a host from a command prompt just by typing ping IP address. E.g. type ping 192.168.0.1 to notice if host with 192.168.0.1 IP address is available. You can also ping a website by typing ping Microsoft Corporation to test its availability.

After a PING is effective you obtain a response back from host displaying its IP address and other details like time it took for reply to go through.

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When a ping reply is not effective you can obtain a range of error replies. Here are the major error messages and what they mean.

TTL Expired in Transit

TTL value decides maximum amount of time an IP packet live in network without getting its destination. It is successfully a bound on many routers an IP packet may pass through before being not needed. This message specifies that TTL expired in transit. Many necessary hops exceed TTL. Raise TTL by using ping -i switch.

Destination Host Unreachable

The host that you are attempting to ping is down or is not operating on network. A local or remote route does not live for destination host. Change local route table or inform router administrator.

Request Timed Out

The ping command timed out as there was no response from host. No Echo Reply messages were got due to network traffic, failure of ARP request packet filtering, or router error. Raise the wait time using ping -w switch.

Unknown Host

The IP Address does not live in network or destination host name cannot be determined. Check name and accessibility of DNS servers.