What the Windows/DOS PING command is used for?

Question

I do know what the PING command does, but I do not understand what its purpose is. PING can show me that the communication with certain site/computer/whatever is relatively fast or slow, and then what? If communications are bad or lost the PING command does not inform about the causes. I have seen the PING command be used to delay a batch file (as a replacement of SLEEP command), but this is an absurd use of PING for me.

Do you use PING for something useful?

Answer 1

I used it to quickly test network communications and cables by swapping in an unknown cable with a known good one and ping'ing an address.



Also used to test communications to a PC on a SCADA system to see if the PC itself was down or just an application program crash. I could do this because I was using static IP addresses on a small internal network. So a quick ping test would determine if I had to drive across the site to do a reboot or if I could use PC Anywhere (was using WinNT machines) to restart application software used to monitor PLC's



Also used PING to localize where along the intranet the com fault occurred when dealing with multiple routers and DSU's (Data Service Unit). If I couldn't reach a PC at the other end I tried PING on other parts or the network to see if a router or DSU was down. Again it helped me determine where I needed to drive to or if I had to call the phone company to fix a dedicated subscriber line connected to a DSU modem.

Answer 2

I'm not sure what you mean by it not being useful as it is the one of the most effective ways to tell you if your conection is up or not. When networking, I use it to ensure my routing is correct and stable before moving on to bigger problems, in other words, the ping command is a layer one <--- ? tool that is very important....unless you know how to ping form your router.

Answer 3

the PING command is usually used to see if you can connect to a computer, wireless printer, etc. Mainly if you are having problems with something of that nature you can use ping to see if it something you are doing wrong or if it is a connection error.

Answer 4

The best use of PING is troubleshooting connectivity issues.