Test Ping

TTL in the Ping Response

Here is a bit of useful information that you can impress your friends with... In a Ping response, there is a TTL or Time to Live value. These come from the system that you are sending your ICMP request packets to and can be used to perform a limited operating system detection check.

The starting TTL varies depending on the operating system. Generally, Linux, Windows, and Cisco routers have differing values. Of course, there are many other possible values and devices, however, this can be a quick way to determine what the device is that is responding to your Ping request. This can mean that gateway or NAT devices, such as firewalls and routers, may be the one responding to the Ping.

For example; you could ping a Microsoft IIS web server, however, if there is a firewall or load balancer in front of it with a *nix based operating system you will receive a TTL of 64 rather than the expected 128. Your actual result will be lower than the listed value as the TTL will decrement on each hop along the path.

Common Operating System TTL

• 64 Linux or *nix based operating system
• 128 Microsoft Windows (from Windows XP onwards)
• 254 Cisco Network Router

About the Test Ping Tool

Ping is a network troubleshooting tool that displays the response time between two Internet (or IP) addresses. Ping tools are installed by default in most operating systems. It does not matter if you are using Solaris, Windows, FreeBSD or Ubuntu Linux; ping is ubiquitous. A ping uses a type of packet known as ICMP, commonly known as ICMP request and ICMP reply.

IPv6 ICMP Testing

Use both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses in your target selection for both the web form and the API endpoint detailed below. If you are pinging a hostname and find the protocol you wish to test (IPv4 / IPv6) is not being used, you will need to enter the IP address manually.

No response from Ping

Firewalls and routers can be configured to block ICMP request and response so you will sometimes find a system does not respond to ping even though the system is up and running. Network Firewalls, such as commercial Cisco and Checkpoint products can do this as can local firewalls such as your local Windows Firewall or a local Linux firewall using IP Tables.

What methods are used to determine the response?

Number of ICMP Packets

Four ICMP request packets are sent from our server in Newark (USA). Our system will then determine how long it takes to get a response from your selected Target IP address.

Risks and the Ping of Death

Ping is a very common tool that is used everywhere, there is nothing dangerous about a few ICMP packets. Unless of course you are running Windows 95! In the late 1990's there was a denial of service attack known as the "Ping of Death". The ping of death crashed Windows systems by sending oversized ICMP ping packets.

It is also possible to use ICMP for a denial of service attack however, this requires sending many more packets than the 4 that we are sending here.

API Access to Ping

Need even faster access to the online Ping tool than the web form above? The API is simple to use and aims to be a quick reference tool; access to the API requires a valid membership and API key. Usage depends on the Membership plan selected.

ICMP Ping API - Simple Text Response

curl "https://api.hackertarget.com/ping/?q=8.8.8.8&apikey=**apikeyrequired**"

ICMP Ping API - JSON response

curl "https://api.hackertarget.com/ping/?q=8.8.8.8&apikey=**apikeyrequired**&output=json" | jq

{
  "packets": {
    "lost_percentage": 0.0,
    "received": 4,
    "transmitted": 4
  },
  "rtt": {
    "avg": 0.676,
    "max": 0.804,
    "mdev": 0.081,
    "min": 0.578
  },
  "target": "8.8.8.8",
  "time_started": "2024-08-11T23:38:39.373852",
  "time_taken": 3.094014
}

Accessing the API is straightforward. You could use it to regularly ping a service and develop your own custom monitoring solution. The advantage being you are performing the monitoring using our server from a separate location to your other services and locations.

Use a HTTP client of choice such as curl, firefox, python or php. You will see the Ping results as a simple plain text response to your HTTP query or JSON if you prefer using &output=json.