Ping Menu Options

The Ping menu bar displays five items: Exit, Settings, Start, Stop and Help. The Exit item terminates the Ping session, and the Help item displays help information available about the Ping. The other three are described below.

The Settings Item

The Settings item allows you to specify parameters of the Ping session. When you select this item, the Ping Settings dialog box appears:

You can cancel any changes you make to the dialog box by clicking on Cancel. By clicking on OK, current settings are stored in the xwp.ini file and become the defaults for future Ping sessions.

The following input fields and check boxes are available:

Host IP

This field is used to specify a network node name or IP address for the remote host that you wish to verify a physical connection to. When you click on the scroll arrow beside the Host IP box, a drop-down box will display host definitions located in your hosts file. To select a host, click on an appropriate definition.

You can use the '*' wild card symbol in the IP address to scan up to 256 hosts in your LAN to see at once which hosts are alive (in both the IPv4 and/or IPv6 modes).

Examples of correct IP addresses:
'192.168.0.*',
'fe80::250:baff:fef2:*42%4'.

Interval

This field lets you set a time interval between two neighboring data packets, in seconds.

TCP port

In this field, you can enter a desired TCP/IP port for TCP/IP protocol pinging. The default is standard TCP/IP echo port 7.

IP mode

You can choose the IPv4 mode for pinging, or the IPv6 mode (for both the ICMP and TCP protocols). The Auto option will automatically choose the IP mode for pinging remote hosts.

Protocol

You can select the standard MS Windows ICMP interface protocol (to allow non-admin users to ping remote hosts), or the TCP protocol. The Auto option will automatically choose the protocol to ping remote hosts.

Trace

This check box allows you to toggle packet tracing. The default setting is disabled.

The Start Item

The Start item initiates a Ping session with the host specified in the Ping Settings dialog box. Ping sends a sequence of data packets to the host with the time interval specified. If connection between your PC and the host exists, Ping will receive a response after every packet sent. If Ping finds the host, it outputs the message <host> (or IP address) is alive. If you get this message, then you know that the TCP/IP transport is set up correctly.

If there are any hardware problems, please check that your cable connection is good and check to see if the host can ping back to your PC.

The Stop Item

The Stop item terminates the Ping session with the remote host specified in the Ping Settings dialog box. Ping outputs summary information.