.TH ping "" "" "Command"
.PC "Check if a remote host is awake"
\fB/etc/ping [\-v] \fIremotehost \fB[\fIcount\^\fB] [\fIpacketsize\^\fB]\fR
.PP
The command
.B ping
sends an echo-respond message to
.IR remotehost .
If
.I remotehost
is awake and alert, it echo the message to your local host;
thus, you can determine if the remote host can communicate with
your local host.
.PP
Normally,
.B ping
sends one request to
.IR remotehost .
If you wish, you can ask it to send
.I count
requests.
.PP
.B ping
displays one line of output for every response it receives.
If you ping the remote host more than once,
.B ping
prints the mean round-trip time for all of the messages, and summarizes
any problems it encountered.
You may wish to use this to test connections that you suspect are ``flaky''.
.PP
The command-line option \fB\-v\fR requests verbose output.
.PP
Finally, if you wish you can set the size of the packet sent to
.I packetsize
instead of the default.
.SH "See Also"
.B
commands,
ifconfig,
netstat
.R
