1 .\" $KAME: ping6.8,v 1.43 2001/06/28 06:54:29 suz Exp $
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30 .\" $FreeBSD: src/sbin/ping6/ping6.8,v 1.3.2.12 2003/02/24 00:56:42 trhodes Exp $
38 .Tn ICMPv6 ECHO_REQUEST
39 packets to network hosts
68 .Op Fl S Ar sourceaddr
71 .Op Fl s Ar packetsize
85 .Tn ICMP6_ECHO_REQUEST
88 from a host or gateway.
89 .Tn ICMP6_ECHO_REQUEST
90 datagrams (``pings'') have an IPv6 header,
93 header formatted as documented in RFC 2463.
94 The options are as follows:
97 Generate ICMPv6 Node Information Node Addresses query, rather than echo-request.
99 must be a string constructed of the following characters.
100 .Bl -tag -width Ds -compact
102 requests all the responder's unicast addresses.
103 If the character is omitted,
104 only those addresses which belong to the interface which has the
105 responder's address are requests.
107 requests responder's IPv4-compatible and IPv4-mapped addresses.
109 requests responder's global-scope addresses.
111 requests responder's site-local addresses.
113 requests responder's link-local addresses.
115 requests responder's anycast addresses.
116 Without this character, the responder will return unicast addresses only.
117 With this character, the responder will return anycast addresses only.
118 Note that the specification does not specify how to get responder's
120 This is an experimental option.
123 Set socket buffer size.
133 option on the socket being used.
136 Outputs packets as fast as they come back or one hundred times per second,
142 is printed, while for every
144 received a backspace is printed.
145 This provides a rapid display of how many packets are being dropped.
146 Only the super-user may use this option.
148 This can be very hard on a network and should be used with caution.
151 Specifies to try reverse-lookup of IPv6 addresses.
154 utility does not try reverse-lookup unless the option is specified.
156 Set the IPv6 hoplimit.
157 .It Fl I Ar interface
158 Source packets with the given interface address.
159 This flag applies if the ping destination is a multicast address,
160 or link-local/site-local unicast address.
165 .Em between sending each packet .
166 The default is to wait for one second between each packet.
167 This option is incompatible with the
175 sends that many packets as fast as possible before falling into its normal
177 Only the super-user may use this option.
180 No attempt will be made to lookup symbolic names from addresses in the reply.
182 Probe node information multicast group
183 .Pq Li ff02::2:xxxx:xxxx .
185 must be string hostname of the target
186 (must not be a numeric IPv6 address).
187 Node information multicast group will be computed based on given
189 and will be used as the final destination.
190 Since node information multicast group is a link-local multicast group,
191 destination link needs to be specified by
195 You may specify up to 16
197 bytes to fill out the packet you send.
198 This is useful for diagnosing data-dependent problems in a network.
201 will cause the sent packet to be filled with all
205 Nothing is displayed except the summary lines at startup time and
208 Make the kernel believe that the target
214 is reachable, by injecting upper-layer reachability confirmation hint.
215 The option is meaningful only if the target
219 .It Fl S Ar sourceaddr
220 Specifies the source address of request packets.
221 The source address must be one of the unicast addresses of the sending node.
222 If the outgoing interface is specified by the
226 needs to be an address assigned to the specified interface.
227 .It Fl s Ar packetsize
228 Specifies the number of data bytes to be sent.
229 The default is 56, which translates into 64
231 data bytes when combined
235 You may need to specify
237 as well to extend socket buffer size.
239 Generate ICMPv6 Node Information supported query types query,
240 rather than echo-request.
250 that are received are listed.
252 Generate ICMPv6 Node Information DNS Name query, rather than echo-request.
260 but with old packet format based on 03 draft.
261 This option is present for backward compatibility.
267 IPv6 addresses for intermediate nodes,
268 which will be put into type 0 routing header.
270 IPv6 address of the final destination node.
275 for fault isolation, it should first be run on the local host, to verify
276 that the local network interface is up and running.
277 Then, hosts and gateways further and further away should be
279 Round-trip times and packet loss statistics are computed.
280 If duplicate packets are received, they are not included in the packet
281 loss calculation, although the round trip time of these packets is used
282 in calculating the round-trip time statistics.
283 When the specified number of packets have been sent
285 or if the program is terminated with a
287 a brief summary is displayed, showing the number of packets sent and
288 received, and the minimum, mean, maximum, and standard deviation of
289 the round-trip times.
299 signal, the current number of packets sent and received, and the
300 minimum, mean, maximum, and standard deviation of the round-trip times
301 will be written to the standard output in the same format as the
302 standard completion message.
304 This program is intended for use in network testing, measurement and
306 Because of the load it can impose on the network, it is unwise to use
308 during normal operations or from automated scripts.
309 .\" .Sh ICMP PACKET DETAILS
310 .\" An IP header without options is 20 bytes.
314 .\" packet contains an additional 8 bytes worth of
316 .\" header followed by an arbitrary amount of data.
319 .\" is given, this indicated the size of this extra piece of data
320 .\" (the default is 56).
321 .\" Thus the amount of data received inside of an IP packet of type
324 .\" will always be 8 bytes more than the requested data space
329 .\" If the data space is at least eight bytes large,
331 .\" uses the first eight bytes of this space to include a timestamp which
332 .\" it uses in the computation of round trip times.
333 .\" If less than eight bytes of pad are specified, no round trip times are
335 .Sh DUPLICATE AND DAMAGED PACKETS
338 utility will report duplicate and damaged packets.
339 Duplicate packets should never occur when pinging a unicast address,
340 and seem to be caused by
341 inappropriate link-level retransmissions.
342 Duplicates may occur in many situations and are rarely
344 a good sign, although the presence of low levels of duplicates may not
345 always be cause for alarm.
346 Duplicates are expected when pinging a broadcast or multicast address,
347 since they are not really duplicates but replies from different hosts
350 Damaged packets are obviously serious cause for alarm and often
351 indicate broken hardware somewhere in the
354 (in the network or in the hosts).
355 .Sh TRYING DIFFERENT DATA PATTERNS
358 layer should never treat packets differently depending on the data
359 contained in the data portion.
360 Unfortunately, data-dependent problems have been known to sneak into
361 networks and remain undetected for long periods of time.
362 In many cases the particular pattern that will have problems is something
363 that does not have sufficient
365 such as all ones or all zeros, or a pattern right at the edge, such as
368 necessarily enough to specify a data pattern of all zeros (for example)
369 on the command line because the pattern that is of interest is
370 at the data link level, and the relationship between what you type and
371 what the controllers transmit can be complicated.
373 This means that if you have a data-dependent problem you will probably
374 have to do a lot of testing to find it.
375 If you are lucky, you may manage to find a file that either
377 be sent across your network or that takes much longer to transfer than
378 other similar length files.
379 You can then examine this file for repeated patterns that you can test
387 utility returns 0 on success (the host is alive),
388 and non-zero if the arguments are incorrect or the host is not responding.
394 would work; the following will send ICMPv6 echo request to
396 .Bd -literal -offset indent
400 The following will probe hostnames for all nodes on the network link attached to
405 is named the link-local all-node multicast address, and the packet would
406 reach every node on the network link.
407 .Bd -literal -offset indent
411 The following will probe addresses assigned to the destination node,
413 .Bd -literal -offset indent
414 ping6 -a agl dst.foo.com
429 .%T "Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMPv6) for the Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) Specification"
435 .%T "IPv6 Node Information Queries"
436 .%N draft-ietf-ipngwg-icmp-name-lookups-07.txt
438 .%O work in progress material
447 utility with IPv6 support first appeared in WIDE Hydrangea IPv6 protocol stack
450 IPv6 support based on the KAME Project
451 .Pa ( http://www.kame.net/ )
452 stack was initially integrated into
455 There have been many discussions on why we separate
459 Some people argued that it would be more convenient to uniform the
460 ping command for both IPv4 and IPv6.
461 The followings are an answer to the request.
463 From a developer's point of view:
464 since the underling raw sockets API is totally different between IPv4
465 and IPv6, we would end up having two types of code base.
466 There would actually be less benefit to uniform the two commands
467 into a single command from the developer's standpoint.
469 From an operator's point of view: unlike ordinary network applications
470 like remote login tools, we are usually aware of address family when using
471 network management tools.
472 We do not just want to know the reachability to the host, but want to know the
473 reachability to the host via a particular network protocol such as
475 Thus, even if we had a unified
477 command for both IPv4 and IPv6, we would usually type a
481 option (or something like those) to specify the particular address family.
482 This essentially means that we have two different commands.