Objective

Ping is a utility used to test if a remote host can be reached and to measure the total trip time for packets sent from the switch to another device. Ping is useful when troubleshooting network connectivity or bandwidth. This article explains how to perform a ping test on the Sx500 Series Stackable Switch.

Applicable Devices

- Sx500 Series Stackable Switches

Software Version

- 1.3.0.62

Ping Test on a Sx500 Series Managed Switch

Step 1. Log in to the web configuration utility and choose Administration > Ping. The Ping page opens:

Step 2. In the Host Definition field, click whether to specify the host device by IP address or by name. If By name is clicked, skip to Step 6.

- By Name — Click this radio button if you want to specify a host name to ping.

- By IP Address — Click this radio button if you want to specify a IP address to ping.

Step 3. In the IP Version field, click either the Version 4 radio button or Version 6 radio button based upon the type of host IP address (IPv4 or IPv6). Skip to Step 7 if Version 4 is clicked in this field.

Step 4. Click the desired IP version from the IP Version field. If IPv6 is chosen in Step 3, click one of the types of IPv6 address radio button.

- Link Local — The IPv6 address identifies hosts on a single network link. A link local address is not routable and can be used for communication only on the local network.

- Global — The IPv6 address is a global Unicast IPv6 type that is visible and reachable from other networks.

Step 5. If Link Local is chosen for the IPv6 Address type, choose the interface where it is received from the Link Local Interface drop-down list. You may see prefixes of all the available interfaces in the list. The default prefix is FE80, which is a non-routable local interface.

Step 6. In the Host IP Address/Name field, enter the IP address of the device to be pinged if you chose By IP address in Step 2 or the host name of the device if you chose By Name in Step 2.

Step 7. In the Ping Interval field, choose the length of time that the system waits between ping packets. Click Use Default to choose the default value, which is 2000 ms. Otherwise, click User Defined and enter the desired length, which must be confined within 0 to 65535 ms.

Step 8. In the Number of Pings field, choose the number of times to perform the ping operation. Click Use Default to choose the default value, which is 4. Otherwise, click User Defined and enter the desired number, which must be confined within 0 to 65535.

Step 9. Click Activate Ping to ping the host.

The results are displayed in the Ping Counters and Status area:

- Number of Sent Packets — Denotes the total number of packets which were sent to the host or the number of pings.

- Number of Received Packets — Denotes the total number of packets received by the host.

- Packets Lost — Denotes the packet loss percentage or the ratio of received packets to sent packets.

- Minimum Round Trip Time — Denotes the least time taken by one frame for a round trip (back and forth).

- Maximum Round Trip Time — Denotes the maximum time taken by one frame for a round trip (back and forth).

- Average Round Trip Time — Denotes the average of the time taken by all frames for a round trip.

- Status — Denotes whether the ping succeeded or not. If the host does not receive even one packet, that is considered to be a failure.