How to Run a Ping and Traceroute Test?

What is a Ping Test?

A Ping test measures the completion and response time by sending a series of brief connections to a website (or IP address). Although you can modify the procedure to transmit connections continuously over time, normally just four pings are sent and answered.

What is a Traceroute Test?

With a Traceroute test, a normal connection run via the Command/Terminal box. This test will provide the details of the ‘hops’ taken as well as the response time for each hop. A hop is a computer or server used for routing your device to the selected website or IP address. Typically the hops can vary from 5 to 20 on any website request.

Importance

You can test and troubleshoot internet connection by running a ping or traceroute test. This helps you to find a non-connection or any connection issue or identify where is the issue occurring in the network.

The process of running each test is similar, but the method of starting them varies depending on the operating systems.

In this video, we will see the three types of the operating system on which we can run a Ping and Traceroute test:

1. Windows 10
2. Apple Mac
3. Linux Ubuntu Flavor

Ping test on Windows 10 Operating System: 

• Go to the search box in the bottom side and type command prompt and press enter.
• A new window appears on the screen, in that type ping and website name or IP address and hit enter.
• A series of four pings will be sent from your computer to the webserver. The result of each ping attempt along with a summary of the statistics will be displayed in the box.
• If you don’t get the statistics then it will show the result as Request timed out.
• If you want to ping your website 25 times then you need to type this command ‘ping website name or ip address -n 25’ and press enter.

Traceroute test on Windows 10 Operating System:

• In the same window type this command tracert space website name or ip address and press enter.
• This command tracks the pathway taken by a packet on an IP network in real-time from source to destination. It reports the IP addresses of all routers that it pinged in between the pathway.
• In case your connection fails regularly, it indicates that there is an issue with the internet connection.
• This process will require some time and once done it will show a message ‘Trace Complete’.

Apple Mac Operating System:        

In the Apple Mac operating system you can run a Ping and Traceroute test by using two methods:

1. Terminal
2. Network Utility
3. To run a Ping and Traceroute test from Terminal follow these simple steps:

• To access the terminal, first, you need to press command and space bar key from the keyboard to get Spotlight Search on desktop.
• Now in Spotlight Search type  Terminal and double click on it.
• Run this command ping space website name or IP address and press enter.
• The result of each ping attempt along with a summary of the statistics will be displayed in the box.
• If you don’t get the statistics then it will show the result as Request timed out.
• Now, for traceroute test type this command traceroute space website name or IP address and press enter.
• It takes some time and tracks the pathway taken by a packet on an IP network in real-time from source to destination. It reports the IP addresses of all routers that it pinged in between the pathway.
• In case your connection fails regularly, it indicates that there is an issue with the internet connection.

2. To run a Ping and Traceroute test from Network Utility follow these simple steps:

• To access the Network utility section, first, you need to press the command and space bar key from the keyboard to get Spotlight Search on desktop.
• Now in Spotlight Search type Network Utility and double click on it.
• Go to ‘Ping’.
• This will ask you for the address that you want to ping.
• In that, the option to send unlimited pings or a specified number will be given to you.
• It is recommended to send pings between 4 and 10 in any one test.
• Now, click on Ping to start the test.
• The result of each ping attempt will be displayed along with a summary of the statistics in a window just below the result.
• If the entire ping requests fail or timeout or lose packets then it is the internet issue.
• Now, go to Traceroute and enter the website name or IP address.
• Click on trace.
• This process will take some time to display statistics and that’s it you’re done.

Ping test on Linux Ubuntu operating system:

• To open terminal on ubuntu press the shortcut keys Ctrl + ALT + T
• In the terminal window type ping space website or IP address and hit enter.
• The result of each ping attempt will be displayed along with a summary of the statistics in a window just below the result.
• If the entire ping requests fail or timeout or loss packets then it is the internet issue.
• If you want to ping your website 10 times then you need to type this command
• ‘ping -c 10 website name or ip address’ and press enter.

 Traceroute test on Linux Ubuntu operating system:

• In the same window type this command traceroute space website name or ip address and press enter.
• This command tracks the pathway taken by a packet on an IP network in real-time from source to destination. It reports the IP addresses of all routers that it pinged in between the pathway.
• In case your connection fails regularly, it indicates that there is an issue with the internet connection.
• This process will require some time and that’s it you’re done.

So in this way you can run a Ping and Traceroute test.

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