How do I get computers to respond to ping in Linux?

Question

I'm a newbie and I'd like to know about the Ping command on Linux (I'm using Ubuntu 11.04).

After pinging a PC on my network, how can I make the target PC respond to my ping calls? I can see that the bytes are transmitted to the target but how do I ensure the target responds to the calls?

Answer 1

Most PCs should respond to ping

$ ping -c 5 black
PING black.example.com (10.0.0.8) from 10.0.0.9 : 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from black.example.com (10.0.0.8): icmp_seq=1 ttl=128 time=0.231 ms
64 bytes from black.example.com (10.0.0.8): icmp_seq=2 ttl=128 time=0.209 ms
64 bytes from black.example.com (10.0.0.8): icmp_seq=3 ttl=128 time=0.210 ms
64 bytes from black.example.com (10.0.0.8): icmp_seq=4 ttl=128 time=0.211 ms
64 bytes from black.example.com (10.0.0.8): icmp_seq=5 ttl=128 time=0.210 ms

--- black.example.com ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% loss, time 3999ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.209/0.214/0.231/0.012 ms

If they don't respond, I'd check any "firewall" configuration on the target PC.

Firewall, Advanced, ICMP, "allow incoming icmp request"

or command line

netsh firewall set icmpsetting 8 enable

(Assuming the target PC is running Windows (specifically XP)).

Answer 2

target PC responds to ping when it is configured in that way. by default most servers ignore ping requests.

try ping google.com and try ping localhost

you will see the difference.