Ping
Scanner
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What does it do? A Ping Scanner is exactly the same as a normal Pinger, only it allows you to ping a whole range of IP addresses. This can be useful for administrators who want to check which workstations are on, and whether their network connection is OK. How does it work? Note: Ping Scanner is only available to OS 9 users and OS X users who log in as root. This is because the legacy ping classes need root privileges to run on OS X. A Ping Scanner basically sends a few ping packets to each address in a whole range of IPs. It then records which packets returned and how long they took. How do I use it? In Net Tool Box, click the "Ping Scan" button on the toolbar. When the window appears, type the DNS name or IP address of the first address in the list, and then the address of the last address in the list. For example, I might want to scan from 10.0.0.1 to 10.0.0.255. You can enter DNS hosts, however if they do not resolve to valid addresses, the scanner will not proceed. If you want to change the default Interval, Timeout and Count, then do so as you would have with the Ping tool. If your network has DNS configured for all or some of the hosts, you can tick the "Resolve DNS" checkbox. This will help you keep track of all the hosts that return with a ping. Once you are happy with the settings, click start and the Scanner will start sending packets. When the first packet from a host is received, a new row with the IP (and DNS name if "Resolve DNS" is on), "1" in the received column and the time it took for it to return. Any subsequent packets received from that host will increment the "Received" column and the average time will be displayed in the "Time" column. The average is calculated from the sum of all the times received for that host and divided by the number of packets received. When it has gone through the whole list and pinged each host your set number of times, it will stop. Problems Once again, the ping scanner cannot ping non routed IPs like the Pinger. Other than that, the only problem I have encountered with it, is a "StackOverflowException" which occurs if too many IP addresses are being scanned. If you are doing heavy scanning, increase the memory allocation in Net Tool Box's Finder Info window. Sometimes, the DNS resolver can be very slow, so if NTB is acting as if it has frozen, don't use the DNS Resolver in Ping Scanners. |
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