The ping command is one of the most helpful network diagnostic tools at your disposal. It’s useful for finding problems both on your local network and on the wider internet. Let’s look at what the ping command does and how to use it.
What Does It Mean to Ping Something?
To “ping” something on a network means that you send an internet packet to a destination computer or other network device, asking for a response. That device then sends a packet back to you.
When the packet comes back (if it makes it back, that is) you can learn all sorts of interesting things about the network between yourself and the destination.
Most commonly, we simply want to know how long the reply takes. So when someone mentions the “ping” of (for example) a website, it’s usually expressed in milliseconds, with a lower number being better in general.
What Is an Internet Packet?
To better understand ping, you need to know a little about the packet you’re sending to the target computer or network device as a “ping.”
Packets are the fundamental units of the modern internet. When you send someone data, like a photo, it gets broken up into tiny pieces. Each packet is marked with a source and destination address and then sent off into the internet. These packets pass through many other computers, such as web servers and internet routers. Packets keep getting passed along until they reach the target system.
What You Can Use Ping For
The ping command has two primary uses:
- To check whether your connection to a remote computer works at all.
- To check how healthy that connection is.
Even if your ping reaches its destination and you get a reply, the ping response will tell you how long a packet took to return and how many packets have been lost. You can use the ping command to diagnose if the connection is too slow or unreliable
What sorts of things can you ping?
- In theory, you can ping anything with an IP address.
- You can ping devices on your LAN to make sure they’re connected properly.
- You can also ping websites to see if you can reach them.
How to Use Ping on Windows
Using ping is easy. You run it from the Command Prompt or PowerShell, but we’re using the Command Prompt in this example:
- Open the Start Menu, search for the Command Prompt, and select it.
- Type Ping and then enter either the IP address of the device or the URL of a site you’d like to ping.
We’ve used Google.com as an example below.
Once initiated, ping will send four packets of data.
A message for any packets that says “request timed out” implies that your computer did not receive a reply from the target. If some packets are lost, some of the routing paths between your computer and the target have an issue.
Useful Ping Command Modifiers for Windows
There are quite a few command switches you can use with the ping command. Switches are extra options to customize how the ping command functions. If you want to see a complete list of options, all you have to do is type ping /help at the Command Prompt and press Enter. You’ll see the whole list as well as the syntax and usage.
