ICL Ping Version 1.0

ICL Ping is a simple utility used for checking a link between your machine and a remote machine (called a host). It does this by sending a signal, called an echo-request, to the remote host. If the host machine doesn’t respond within a certain time, this is known as a timeout and indicates that the link is down. The time allowed for a response, before a timeout is recorded, is called the timeout threshold and is configurable.

ICL Ping displays not only the responses as they arrive, but a continuously updated display of the performance of the link with your machine and the remote host over the course of the signals sent.

This graphic shows the main screen of the Ping program. Click on any control to see more information about it.


Named Host Box

This box holds the name of the remote host being pinged. This can be specified either as an IP address (eg 194.112.41.31) or as an alphanumeric server name (eg ‘www.insight.co.uk’). Activating the dop-down section will display the most recently pinged hosts. The 10 most recent are saved when the program exits and automatically re-entered on startup.


Abort

The abort button cancels a sequence of pings before all the pings have been sent. If a ping has already started when the button is pressed then it will be allowed to complete.


Single Ping Button

The abort button cancels a sequence of pings before all the pings have been sent. If a ping has already started when the button is pressed then it will be allowed to complete.


Multiple Ping Select Box

This ping allows you to enter the number of pings to send on pressing the multi-ping button. You should be careful not to ping a host continuously for long periods of time as this will have the effect of clogging the network.


Multiple Ping Button

Pressing this button will send the remote host a sequence of pings. The number of pings sent is set in the box to the left of this button.


Average Trip Time

The average trip time gives the average time taken to send the response and receive a response from the remote host. All times are given in milliseconds (ms)


Time Display Bars

The time display bars give a graphical indication of the time taken to send a ping and receive the echo from the remote host. This indicator allows you to see how the longest and shortest trip times relate to each other and to the average trip time. The red bar shows the longest trip time, the yellow the average, and the green the shortest trip time. The lengths of the bars are proportional to the times.


Timeouts

A timeout occurs when a ping is sent to a host and no response is received within a set amount of time. This label records the number of timeouts that have occurred with this host in this session. A timeout is also known as a packet loss.


%Package Loss Indicators

These controls give an idea of the percentage of packets sent that are getting lost as timeouts.


Response Section

This section holds all the responses from the host. Exact times for pings and the IP address that they are sent to are listed, along with any timeouts.


Status Bar

The Status Bar gives details of the current operation or a summary of the current session.


File Menu

The file menu has 2 options:

Save Session : This will save the text in the response section out to a text file.

Exit : This terminates the current session.


Options Menu

The options menu has two options :

Preferences : This opens the preferences dialog.

Clear Notes: This clears the responses section.


Ping Size

This determines how much data to send to the host.


Timeout Threshold

This sets how long to wait for a response from the server before recording a timeout.