What is ping command used for?

What is ping command used for?

• A. To secure SSH connections.
• B. To test IP connectivity between two network devices.
• C. To display DNS cache.
• D. To configure routes.

Answer: (B)

Ping is a quick way to verify reachability between two devices at the IP level. It sends an ICMP echo request to a target and waits for an ICMP echo reply. If a reply comes back, you know the path to that destination exists and you get a rough sense of the round-trip time, which helps assess latency and potential packet loss. If no reply is received, it can indicate the host is down, the path is blocked, or ICMP is being filtered somewhere along the route. This differs from other common tasks: securing a remote session is done with SSH, viewing or clearing DNS caches uses DNS utilities, and configuring routes is handled by routing commands. Ping doesn’t perform those actions; it’s simply a basic connectivity check to see if two devices can reach each other over IP.

Ping is a quick way to verify reachability between two devices at the IP level. It sends an ICMP echo request to a target and waits for an ICMP echo reply. If a reply comes back, you know the path to that destination exists and you get a rough sense of the round-trip time, which helps assess latency and potential packet loss. If no reply is received, it can indicate the host is down, the path is blocked, or ICMP is being filtered somewhere along the route.

This differs from other common tasks: securing a remote session is done with SSH, viewing or clearing DNS caches uses DNS utilities, and configuring routes is handled by routing commands. Ping doesn’t perform those actions; it’s simply a basic connectivity check to see if two devices can reach each other over IP.