Re: ICMP packets

From: Bob Rivers (bobrivers_at_pobox.com)
Date: 10/24/03 

Date: 24 Oct 2003 06:32:11 -0700

> I do wonder, though, why this subject comes up so often. What advantage
> could there be to a program with the ability to do ping? It is useful for
> network administrators to check that the network is working properly.
> Though more and more firewalls block both ping and the TCP and UDP echo
> ports, reducing the usefulness of these features.

Hi,

The advantage of ping usage, is because with it I can:

1) Check if my server/network is down or not;
2) Get metrics about my server/network perfomance (minimum, maximun
and average round trip times);
3) Get metrics about my server/network quality (packets sent, received
and loss percentage)

So, a small application could give me lots of information. So this is
why this subject comes up often, imho.

Of course I could try to open an URL. If I got a response, I could
supose that my server/network is working properly. I also could use a
timer to mesure the start/stop and then gather the server/network
performance. I could also try to use traceroute command.

But this is the point. I do not want to write everything. If J2SDK
1.4.2 is able to provide ICMP, and then I could build a ping
application, I should give it a try.

And about firewalls, I do not agree. Its true that more and more
sysops are closing ports and dennying this kind of service, and they
should do it.

But this is not 100% true. Inside companys, sysops should be able to
use this kind of solution. At least they could open it to a limited
range of addresses. So I can keep it controlled, and not loose a
great/simple tool.

Thanks for replying.

Bob
Ps.: Sorry my poor english. It's difficult to argue in a foregin
language.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: ICMP packets
    ... >> Though more and more firewalls block both ping and the TCP and UDP echo ... What kind of server do you have that doesn't give you packet counts? ... > sysops are closing ports and dennying this kind of service, ... sysops should be able to ...
    (comp.lang.java)
  • Re: ICMP packets
    ... >> Though more and more firewalls block both ping and the TCP and UDP echo ... What kind of server do you have that doesn't give you packet counts? ... > sysops are closing ports and dennying this kind of service, ... sysops should be able to ...
    (comp.lang.java)