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Networking & Telecommunications vocabulary · Troubleshooting and Monitoring

Ping

Meaning in networking & telecommunications, with examples

/pɪŋ/verbCore term

In networking & telecommunications, ping means: To send a small test message to another device and wait for a reply, in order to check whether it can be reached and how long the round trip takes.

In Turkish: ping atmak, ping

How it is used

Used as a verb and a noun: you ping a server, run a ping, or say 'the ping is 40 ms'. Ping uses ICMP echo messages, so a device may be up even if it doesn't answer because ICMP is blocked. In offices, 'ping me' also means 'send me a quick message'.

Example sentences

  1. I can ping the gateway, but not the DNS server.

  2. The switch replies to ping, so the management interface is up.

Common collocations

  • ping a server
  • run a ping
  • ping test
  • ping response
  • continuous ping
  • ICMPShort for Internet Control Message Protocol: a protocol that network devices use to send error and status messages, such as 'destination unreachable'; ping and traceroute rely on it.
  • tracerouteA diagnostic tool that lists every router a packet passes through on its way to a destination, with the delay to each one, so you can see where traffic slows down or stops.
  • latencyThe time it takes for data to travel from one point of a network to another, usually measured in milliseconds; lower latency means a faster response.
  • round-trip timeThe time it takes for a packet to travel from a source to a destination and for the reply to come back, usually shown in milliseconds; ping reports this value.
  • troubleshootTo find the cause of a technical problem step by step, usually by testing one possible cause at a time, and then fix it.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Troubleshooting and Monitoring

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