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.
More information about the devel
mailing list