1 .\" $KAME: ping6.8,v 1.43 2001/06/28 06:54:29 suz Exp $
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38 .Tn ICMPv6 ECHO_REQUEST
39 packets to network hosts
42 .\" without ipsec, or new ipsec
45 .\" .Op Fl AdEfnNqRtvwW
75 .Op Fl S Ar sourceaddr
78 .Op Fl s Ar packetsize
91 .Tn ICMP6_ECHO_REQUEST
94 from a host or gateway.
95 .Tn ICMP6_ECHO_REQUEST
96 datagrams (``pings'') have an IPv6 header,
99 header formatted as documented in RFC2463.
100 The options are as follows:
104 .\" Enables transport-mode IPsec authentication header
107 Generate ICMPv6 Node Information Node Addresses query, rather than echo-request.
109 must be a string constructed of the following characters.
110 .Bl -tag -width Ds -compact
112 requests all the responder's unicast addresses.
113 If the character is omitted,
114 only those addresses which belong to the interface which has the
115 responder's address are requests.
117 requests responder's IPv4-compatible and IPv4-mapped addresses.
119 requests responder's global-scope addresses.
121 requests responder's site-local addresses.
123 requests responder's link-local addresses.
125 requests responder's anycast addresses.
126 Without this character, the responder will return unicast addresses only.
127 With this character, the responder will return anycast addresses only.
128 Note that the specification does not specify how to get responder's
130 This is an experimental option.
133 Set socket buffer size.
143 option on the socket being used.
145 .\" Enables transport-mode IPsec encapsulated security payload
149 Outputs packets as fast as they come back or one hundred times per second,
155 is printed, while for every
157 received a backspace is printed.
158 This provides a rapid display of how many packets are being dropped.
159 Only the super-user may use this option.
161 This can be very hard on a network and should be used with caution.
164 Specifies to try reverse-lookup of IPv6 addresses.
167 command does not try reverse-lookup unless the option is specified.
169 Set the IPv6 hoplimit.
170 .It Fl I Ar interface
171 Source packets with the given interface address.
172 This flag applies if the ping destination is a multicast address,
173 or link-local/site-local unicast address.
178 .Em between sending each packet .
179 The default is to wait for one second between each packet.
180 This option is incompatible with the
188 sends that many packets as fast as possible before falling into its normal
190 Only the super-user may use this option.
193 No attempt will be made to lookup symbolic names from addresses in the reply.
195 Probe node information multicast group
196 .Pq Li ff02::2:xxxx:xxxx .
198 must be string hostname of the target
199 (must not be a numeric IPv6 address).
200 Node information multicast group will be computed based on given
202 and will be used as the final destination.
203 Since node information multicast group is a link-local multicast group,
204 destination link needs to be specified by
208 You may specify up to 16
210 bytes to fill out the packet you send.
211 This is useful for diagnosing data-dependent problems in a network.
214 will cause the sent packet to be filled with all
219 specifies IPsec policy to be used for the probe.
222 Nothing is displayed except the summary lines at startup time and
225 Make the kernel believe that the target
231 is reachable, by injecting upper-layer reachability confirmation hint.
232 The option is meaningful only if the target
236 .It Fl S Ar sourceaddr
237 Specifies the source address of request packets.
238 The source address must be one of the unicast addresses of the sending node.
239 If the outgoing interface is specified by the
243 needs to be an address assigned to the specified interface.
244 .It Fl s Ar packetsize
245 Specifies the number of data bytes to be sent.
246 The default is 56, which translates into 64
248 data bytes when combined
252 You may need to specify
254 as well to extend socket buffer size.
256 Generate ICMPv6 Node Information supported query types query,
257 rather than echo-request.
267 that are received are listed.
269 Generate ICMPv6 Node Information DNS Name query, rather than echo-request.
277 but with old packet format based on 03 draft.
278 This option is present for backward compatibility.
284 IPv6 addresses for intermediate nodes,
285 which will be put into type 0 routing header.
287 IPv6 address of the final destination node.
292 for fault isolation, it should first be run on the local host, to verify
293 that the local network interface is up and running.
294 Then, hosts and gateways further and further away should be
296 Round-trip times and packet loss statistics are computed.
297 If duplicate packets are received, they are not included in the packet
298 loss calculation, although the round trip time of these packets is used
299 in calculating the round-trip time statistics.
300 When the specified number of packets have been sent
302 or if the program is terminated with a
304 a brief summary is displayed, showing the number of packets sent and
305 received, and the minimum, mean, maximum, and standard deviation of
306 the round-trip times.
316 signal, the current number of packets sent and received, and the
317 minimum, mean, maximum, and standard deviation of the round-trip times
318 will be written to the standard output in the same format as the
319 standard completion message.
321 This program is intended for use in network testing, measurement and
323 Because of the load it can impose on the network, it is unwise to use
325 during normal operations or from automated scripts.
326 .\" .Sh ICMP PACKET DETAILS
327 .\" An IP header without options is 20 bytes.
331 .\" packet contains an additional 8 bytes worth of
333 .\" header followed by an arbitrary amount of data.
336 .\" is given, this indicated the size of this extra piece of data
337 .\" (the default is 56).
338 .\" Thus the amount of data received inside of an IP packet of type
341 .\" will always be 8 bytes more than the requested data space
346 .\" If the data space is at least eight bytes large,
348 .\" uses the first eight bytes of this space to include a timestamp which
349 .\" it uses in the computation of round trip times.
350 .\" If less than eight bytes of pad are specified, no round trip times are
352 .Sh DUPLICATE AND DAMAGED PACKETS
354 will report duplicate and damaged packets.
355 Duplicate packets should never occur when pinging a unicast address,
356 and seem to be caused by
357 inappropriate link-level retransmissions.
358 Duplicates may occur in many situations and are rarely
360 a good sign, although the presence of low levels of duplicates may not
361 always be cause for alarm.
362 Duplicates are expected when pinging a broadcast or multicast address,
363 since they are not really duplicates but replies from different hosts
366 Damaged packets are obviously serious cause for alarm and often
367 indicate broken hardware somewhere in the
370 (in the network or in the hosts).
371 .Sh TRYING DIFFERENT DATA PATTERNS
374 layer should never treat packets differently depending on the data
375 contained in the data portion.
376 Unfortunately, data-dependent problems have been known to sneak into
377 networks and remain undetected for long periods of time.
378 In many cases the particular pattern that will have problems is something
379 that does not have sufficient
381 such as all ones or all zeros, or a pattern right at the edge, such as
384 necessarily enough to specify a data pattern of all zeros (for example)
385 on the command line because the pattern that is of interest is
386 at the data link level, and the relationship between what you type and
387 what the controllers transmit can be complicated.
389 This means that if you have a data-dependent problem you will probably
390 have to do a lot of testing to find it.
391 If you are lucky, you may manage to find a file that either
393 be sent across your network or that takes much longer to transfer than
394 other similar length files.
395 You can then examine this file for repeated patterns that you can test
402 returns 0 on success (the host is alive),
403 and non-zero if the arguments are incorrect or the host is not responding.
409 would work; the following will send ICMPv6 echo request to
411 .Bd -literal -offset indent
415 The following will probe hostnames for all nodes on the network link attached to
420 is named the link-local all-node multicast address, and the packet would
421 reach every node on the network link.
422 .Bd -literal -offset indent
426 The following will probe addresses assigned to the destination node,
428 .Bd -literal -offset indent
429 ping6 -a agl dst.foo.com
444 .%T "Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMPv6) for the Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) Specification"
450 .%T "IPv6 Node Information Queries"
451 .%N draft-ietf-ipngwg-icmp-name-lookups-07.txt
453 .%O work in progress material
456 There have been many discussions on why we separate
460 Some people argued that it would be more convenient to uniform the
461 ping command for both IPv4 and IPv6.
462 The followings are an answer to the request.
464 From a developer's point of view:
465 since the underling raw sockets API is totally different between IPv4
466 and IPv6, we would end up having two types of code base.
467 There would actually be less benefit to uniform the two commands
468 into a single command from the developer's standpoint.
470 From an operator's point of view: unlike ordinary network applications
471 like remote login tools, we are usually aware of address family when using
472 network management tools.
473 We do not just want to know the reachability to the host, but want to know the
474 reachability to the host via a particular network protocol such as
476 Thus, even if we had a unified
478 command for both IPv4 and IPv6, we would usually type a
482 option (or something like those) to specify the particular address family.
483 This essentially means that we have two different commands.
491 command with IPv6 support first appeared in WIDE Hydrangea IPv6 protocol stack
494 IPv6 and IPsec support based on the KAME Project (http://www.kame.net/) stack
495 was initially integrated into
projects / FreeBSD / FreeBSD.git / blob