Continuous Ping Tool

A continuous ping tool is a tool that pings a remoter device on an interval and does not stop. It does it every interval of time, like every 5 seconds for example. It does not stop until the user stops it. By using this tool it is possible to monitor that the remote device is up and running. Due to the nature of the ping command, it will also show you hr time it takes in a millisecond with this information you can measure the latency to the remote device.

To run continuous ping you can use a tool that supports the ICMP protocol. this is the protocol that ping is using. the easiest and most accessible ping tool is the built-in command-line ping tool.

That tool enables you to verify if a particular target hostname or IP address is accessible or not. You can also use ping to diagnose network related problems on your computer and to measure the latency to that device.

Open Port Ping UI Tool:

Our PingUI tool has the continuous ping checkbox to support it, that enables you to start a ping command on a remote host to verify whether a computer connected to a network and running – aka UP or Down.

Selecting the continues checkbox will make this tool sending pings to the target host/IP continues forever, or till you stop the tool from running.  The best part of this tool is that it has a user interface that you can use.

Here is a screen from the PingUI tool.

The Ping command line:

The ping command works by sending an echo request message to the target over the ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol). It then waits for that message to come back.

It is good to know that ping command can send more than one echo request and counts the statistics on all the attempts it makes which are later displayed on the output.

What is continuous Ping anyway:

Continuous ping, also known as sending an ICMP packet or echo, as we already know is the process of running a ping to a remote device and continue doing it for a long time. Using this the tool can collect the ping matrix and use it for statistics. You can see what was the ping longest time and when to figure if there are any networks issues.

How to do a continuous ping using the ping command:

One option to perform a continuous ping test is by using our PingUI tool. You can download it from this website.

Another option is using the ping command-line tool with the -t parameter. This is for running the command under windows environment. On a Linux environment, the default behavior of the ping command is to continue till you stop the ping command from running.

In basic term, a continuous ping is done by sending a ping ICMP packet to a remote host again and again and again. You only need to specify the hostname or IP address that you want to ping to.

Then, depending on the continuous ping tool you are using, you just need to click on the ‘ping’ or ‘start’ button and it will start pinging. As you specify the hostname, it is translated into the corresponding IP address where the echo requests will be sent.

As you do the continuous ping test, you can make some settings on the ping command.

These may include:

• Count – Number of echo requests to be sent.
• Timeout – Represents the time to wait for each reply.
• Time To Live – Representing the number of network nodes that the request packet can go through.
• Buffer Size – The additional information added to the ping packets.

Please refer to our ping command page for more information on the ping command-line tool.

The above information can be the answer to how to do a continuous ping using the ping command question.

Using the ping command as a continuous ping tool:

Below are the methods you can use to create a continuous ping test depending on the environment. Here are some of the ways of creating a continuous ping.

1. ping 192.168.1.1 –t This continuous ping command is used in Windows (CMD Prompt), and it works in Windows 7, 8, 98, 95, XP and the Server family. You need to go to start, run and type CMD to open the command prompt.
2. ping 192.168.1.1 This is used in OSX and Mac in OSX the ping is continuous by default. If this command does not work, you can use “/sbin/ping 192.168.1.1” instead.
3. ping 192.168.1.1 It is used in the Unix/Linux shell,  also in UNIX the ping command is continuous by default. Under Unix/Linux shell, you can also use “ping 192.168.1.1 -c 9999999″ the -c indicate count and the high number will make the ping command run lots of time. If this command does not work, you can use ” /bin/ping 192.168.1.1″ instead.
4. ping 192.168.1.1 This is used in Juniper, JunOS, the ping command is continuous by default in JunOS.
5. ping 192.168.1.1 repeat 9999999 This is used in the Firewall/Switch/Cisco Router. It is important to know that you cannot do a continuous ping on a Cisco router, switch or firewall. Nevertheless, you can do lots of pings to simulate a continuous ping, but it may be blocked on the Firewall/Switch/Cisco Router.

The above are the common continuous ping steps. You can always stop the continuing ping if needed, by simply press CONTROL+C.

Ping not responding:

In some cases, the computers may not respond to a ping command. This might be as a result of one of the following options:

• Incorrect firewall or router configuration.
• A policy that restrings the ICMP protocol.
• The target host is down.
• Failure in the network hardware
• The ping was blocked on the firewall.
• Other reason.

If a ping command returns an error it is important to understand why it fails during the check. Using the error message that it returns and the above list it is possible to understand why your continuous ping test failed.

What about a continuous ping test online:

We have here on our website an online ping test tool, that can be useful to run a ping test online. Currently, the site team, working to improve this tool and to add it new options and features, like running a continuous ping test online. We will update once this feature will be implemented to our ping test online tool.

Please also check our open port tool and our PingUI tool.