Fping
Description
Fping is a program like ping which uses the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) echo request to determine if a target host is responding. Fping differs from ping in that you can specify any number of targets on the command line, or specify a file containing the lists of targets to ping. Instead of sending to one target until it times out or replies, fping will send out a ping packet and move on to the next target in a round-robin fashion.
In the default mode, if a target replies, it is noted and removed from the list of targets to check; if a target does not respond within a certain time limit and/or retry limit it is designated as unreachable. Fping also supports sending a specified number of pings to a target, or looping indefinitely (as in ping).
Unlike ping, fping is meant to be used in scripts, so its output is designed to be easy to parse.
Installation
$ sudo apt-get install fping
Usage
Basic syntax
$ fping [options] [targets...]
Options
- -a
- show targets that are alive
- -A
- show targets by address
- -b <n>
- amount of ping data to send, in bytes (default 56)
- -B <f>
- set exponential backoff factor to f
- -c <n>
- count of pings to send to each target (default 1)
- -C <n>
- same as -c, report results in verbose format
- -e
- show elapsed time on return packets
- -f <file>
- read list of targets from a file
- ( - means stdin)
- (only if no -g specified)
- -g
- generate target list (only if no -f specified)
- (specify the start and end IP in the target list, or supply a IP netmask)
- (ex. fping -g 192.168.1.0 192.168.1.255 or fping -g 192.168.1.0/24)
- -i <n>
- interval between sending ping packets (in millisec) (default 25)
- -l
- loop sending pings forever
- -m
- ping multiple interfaces on target host
- -n
- show targets by name (-d is equivalent)
- -p <n>
- interval between ping packets to one target (in millisec)
- (in looping and counting modes, default 1000)
- -q
- quiet (don't show per-target/per-ping results)
- -Q <n>
- same as -q, but show summary every n seconds
- -r <n>
- number of retries (default 3)
- -s
- print final stats
- -S <addr>
- set source address
- -t <n>
- individual target initial timeout (in millisec) (default 500)
- -T <n>
- set select timeout (default 10)
- -u
- show targets that are unreachable
- -v
- show version
- targets
- list of targets to check
- (if no -f specified)
Examples
Responding host
$ fping 192.168.100.1 192.168.100.1 is alive
Non-responding host
$ fping 192.168.100.13 ICMP Host Unreachable from 192.168.100.18 for ICMP Echo sent to 192.168.100.13 ICMP Host Unreachable from 192.168.100.18 for ICMP Echo sent to 192.168.100.13 ICMP Host Unreachable from 192.168.100.18 for ICMP Echo sent to 192.168.100.13 192.168.100.13 is unreachable