Testing Your Network Connectivity

Testing Your Network Connectivity

Two network management tools, rup and ping, provide quick information about network connectivity. rup indicates if there is a physical problem with the network, such as your station being unable to contact the other stations. Since rup uses broadcasts as a default, it does not go through routers. If your station can see the other stations on the network, use ping to test communication abilities. ping uses the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP), which requests an echo from the designated station. It lets you know if you can transmit and receive packets to and from specific stations.

Issue the rup command to determine if your station can contact the other stations on the network:
/usr/bin/rup
You should get output on each of the stations on your network. The other stations on your network must be up for your station to get a user-friendly response. If the other stations are powered on and attached to the network but not up in user mode, the information comes back in hexadecimal.
Issue the ping command to see if your station can communicate with the other stations on the network:
/usr/etc/ping station_name
Let the output run a few seconds, then use <Ctrl-C> to break it. Pay particular attention to the ping statistics. ping gives you the number of packets transmitted, number of packets received, percentage packet loss, and round trip time (minimum, maximum, and average). These are all good indicators as to the general condition of your network. Obviously, you want 0% packet loss and a fast round-trip time.