🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sun, 2 Mar 1997 23:20:11 GMT, Ian Stirling <root@mauve.demon.co.uk>
wrote:

Mauve,

: >Pinging a site just times the flow of a little packet of data to that
>: >site and back again.  It gives an idea of how slow the route is, and
>: >whether or not the site is actually responding (or even there).
>
>: If the site "isn't there" surely the ping will time out?
>
>Ping cannot time-out, for example on RFC1149 links, the RTT may be up
>to several days. Even worse, in inclement weather.
>I've personally seen 20 second pings, with 100% packets
>getting through.

OK, perhaps this is a special function of WS_PING which reposrts
long-ish ping times as "timed out". It also lists lost packets with
some slow sites, averaging 1 out of 10 packets timing out or goin g
astray.

>: WS_Ping is a nice utulity that will not only ping a site but
>: TRACE-ROUTE it too, listing the time taken from one stage in the
>: packet's journey to the next router.
>
>Strictly, it can't do this, it can only time how long packets from
>each router take to return to you.
>This may also be affected by other factors, such as some routers
>will drop the ICMP packets used for this, or at least slow them.

OK, you obviously have more technical knowledge of Internet routing
that I. Still, I find ws_ping gives some interesting information on
how and where your packets are routed. ;)

>It shows when packets have not arrived, they may indeed be lost, or
>may just be delayed.

That is most probable. Thanks for the feedback.


Cheers,
Derek