ping download.fedora.redhat.com

Chris Adams cmadams at hiwaay.net
Tue Jan 20 17:50:24 UTC 2004


Once upon a time, David Farning <dfarning at sbcglobal.net> said:
> I am writing a channel selector for a package management tool to be used
> with fedora.  Integrated in the selector is a ping utility to test
> mirror connections.

Ping is a very poor test of network reachability, availability, speed,
or latency.  You should instead try to open an FTP (or HTTP connection
as appropriate); that is the only thing that will tell you if and how
well FTP (or HTTP ) will work.

Many places block ICMP echo requests with firewalls, packet filters,
etc.  How much it does to improve security is a matter of some debate,
but it is a fact that it is widely blocked (and so not a useful
indicator of reachability).  Ping was never a very good indicator of
anything else (like speed or latency), due in part to it being a very
low priority packet type.

-- 
Chris Adams <cmadams at hiwaay.net>
Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services
I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.





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