All computers on a
network have a unique network address so that other machines can
find them . It might be easier to think of all of the machines
on the network as being houses on a street. Each house needs to
have a unique address so that the mail carrier can find them.
The real problem here
is that the machine addresses are long and cumbersome (an example
would be 192.168.200.234). Therefore, each machine also has a
hostname that is easier to remember than the address (an example
of a host name might be Acctg17).
To find out if you
can communicate with other machines on the network using either
their hostname or numeric address, use the ping
command.
Command
Format
ping [ -option(s)
] hostname
|
Options
|
Displays
|
| -c
5 |
Send
only 5 messages |
| -R |
This
displays the route that returned packets take back to the
originating host |
| -v |
The
results of other options not normally printed on-screen |
Example
This example
will query a machine named oakland to see if it is available:
$ ping
oakland
oakland is
alive
$
The system
reply (oakland is alive) indicates that the system is connected
to the network and that it is functional (alive).
Tip: Control
- c is used to stop the ping command.
