Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 8/7/84; site ucbvax.ARPA Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!ucbvax!info-vax From: info-vax@ucbvax.ARPA Newsgroups: fa.info-vax Subject: Pinging gateways Message-ID: <2610@ucbvax.ARPA> Date: Wed, 17-Oct-84 12:40:45 EDT Article-I.D.: ucbvax.2610 Posted: Wed Oct 17 12:40:45 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 18-Oct-84 19:21:30 EDT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.ARPA Organization: University of California at Berkeley Lines: 25 From: Ron TencatiSince it was I that made the original request for software to "ping" a gateway, I should respond to the inquiry as to what a "ping" is so everyone will know what I was asking. I am not a technical person at all. As I understood it, you run some program and tell it the net-address of a gateway (or host) that you wanted to check yourconnection to. The software would then send some number of packets out to that address and wait for some to return. After some length of time, it would print a summary of timing delays and packets sent/recieved which would implicitly tell you that you could in fact make a connection to that address. I need that information to check out my routing tables so I can be sure that all my routes are valid. I am still not sure. I admit that this information is probably wrong, but wrong as it may be, it was the basis for my previous question. I understand that it is not a good idea to "ping" anything since all it does is flood the net with packets, and if every one pinged, there would be no traffic getting through.... but what about my route tables? I could still use some advice... Ron Tencati TENCATI@JPL-VLSI ------