guaranteed pingable ip address?

Does anyone know of an IP address out there that is always guaranteed to
allow pings? I've always just used 216.239.53.101 which is one of google's
servers. Unfortunately, it appears recently they have disallowed pings on
their machines, presumably for security reasons. I use pings as a
fundamental way to test my connectivity to the internet as well as a way of
bypassing DNS if that is having a problem.

I was recently unable to ping the 216.239.53.101 and so assumed I had a
connectivity problem. Turns out my connectivity was fine, just that they
were disallowed. It seems to me that if ever wrote a diagnostic script and
hard-coded an IP address, it would be nice to not have to worry about the
IP address being non-pingable in the future. I'm thinking along the lines
of the newsgroup alt.test which is reserved for one purpose, namely posting
test messages.

Thanks,

V. Turner

On Tue, 04 Nov 2003 01:23:49 GMT,
V. Turner <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> Does anyone know of an IP address out there that is always guaranteed to
> allow pings? I've always just used 216.239.53.101 which is one of google's
> servers. Unfortunately, it appears recently they have disallowed pings on
> their machines, presumably for security reasons. I use pings as a
> fundamental way to test my connectivity to the internet as well as a way of
> bypassing DNS if that is having a problem.

Try traceroute.

>
> I was recently unable to ping the 216.239.53.101 and so assumed I had a
> connectivity problem. Turns out my connectivity was fine, just that they
> were disallowed. It seems to me that if ever wrote a diagnostic script and
> hard-coded an IP address, it would be nice to not have to worry about the
> IP address being non-pingable in the future. I'm thinking along the lines
> of the newsgroup alt.test which is reserved for one purpose, namely posting
> test messages.

I agree it'd be nice, but it would almost have to be a throw away IP if
it was used universally a testing IP. I used to ping redhat.com, and
ran into the same problem. I haven't checked the man pages, but I'd
assume traceroute can be used as a nearly drop in replacement.

Michael C.
--
(E-Mail Removed) http://mcsuper5.freeshell.org/
Registered Linux User #303915 http://counter.li.org/

On Tue, 04 Nov 2003 01:23:49 GMT, V. Turner <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> Does anyone know of an IP address out there that is always guaranteed to
> allow pings? I've always just used 216.239.53.101 which is one of google's
> servers. Unfortunately, it appears recently they have disallowed pings on
> their machines, presumably for security reasons. I use pings as a
> fundamental way to test my connectivity to the internet as well as a way of
> bypassing DNS if that is having a problem.
>
> I was recently unable to ping the 216.239.53.101 and so assumed I had a
> connectivity problem. Turns out my connectivity was fine, just that they
> were disallowed. It seems to me that if ever wrote a diagnostic script and
> hard-coded an IP address, it would be nice to not have to worry about the
> IP address being non-pingable in the future. I'm thinking along the lines
> of the newsgroup alt.test which is reserved for one purpose, namely posting
> test messages.

Set a flag (something in a file) from /etc/ppp/ip-up and ip-down to
indicate whether your earthlink is connected or not. I used to set my
local ppp IP in a file when connected (from ip-up) and a zero if not
(ip-down). Then I could could assume I was connected (and know my IP) if
the contents of that file was not zero. Works even for demand pppd
without triggering a connection like ping would.

If you want to ping something regularly, ping something on your ISP.
Pinging a host often without permission, may be considered abuse.

--
David Efflandt - All spam ignored http://www.de-srv.com/
http://www.autox.chicago.il.us/ http://www.berniesfloral.net/
http://cgi-help.virtualave.net/ http://hammer.prohosting.com/~cgi-wiz/

"Michael C." <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:
>
> I agree it'd be nice, but it would almost have to be a throw away IP if
> it was used universally a testing IP. I used to ping redhat.com, and
> ran into the same problem. I haven't checked the man pages, but I'd
> assume traceroute can be used as a nearly drop in replacement.

Except that raceroute uses ping packets. If you were to traceroute to
a site, you'd find out how far you could get before you either had
connectivity trouble, or got to a site that didn't respond to pings;
and you wouldn't be able to know which it was. FWIW, I use mtr for
this purpose.

The fact we can't really check network connectivity any more isjust
one more reason the virus writers will be consigned to an eternity of
reading email consisting solely of their own viruses.
--
Joseph J. Pfeiffer, Jr., Ph.D. Phone -- (505) 646-1605
Department of Computer Science FAX -- (505) 646-1002
New Mexico State University http://www.cs.nmsu.edu/~pfeiffer
Southwestern NM Regional Science and Engr Fair: http://www.nmsu.edu/~scifair

On Tue, 4 Nov 2003 17:01:21 +0000 (UTC),
David Efflandt <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> On Tue, 04 Nov 2003 01:23:49 GMT, V. Turner <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> > Does anyone know of an IP address out there that is always guaranteed to
> > allow pings? I've always just used 216.239.53.101 which is one of google's
> > servers. Unfortunately, it appears recently they have disallowed pings on
> > their machines, presumably for security reasons. I use pings as a
> > fundamental way to test my connectivity to the internet as well as a way of
> > bypassing DNS if that is having a problem.
> >
> > I was recently unable to ping the 216.239.53.101 and so assumed I had a
> > connectivity problem. Turns out my connectivity was fine, just that they
> > were disallowed. It seems to me that if ever wrote a diagnostic script and
> > hard-coded an IP address, it would be nice to not have to worry about the
> > IP address being non-pingable in the future. I'm thinking along the lines
> > of the newsgroup alt.test which is reserved for one purpose, namely posting
> > test messages.
>
> Set a flag (something in a file) from /etc/ppp/ip-up and ip-down to
> indicate whether your earthlink is connected or not. I used to set my
> local ppp IP in a file when connected (from ip-up) and a zero if not
> (ip-down). Then I could could assume I was connected (and know my IP) if
> the contents of that file was not zero. Works even for demand pppd
> without triggering a connection like ping would.

Wouldn't `ifconfig ppp0` work just as well?

Michael C.
--
(E-Mail Removed) http://mcsuper5.freeshell.org/
Registered Linux User #303915 http://counter.li.org/

Joe Pfeiffer wrote:

> "Michael C." <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:
>
>>I agree it'd be nice, but it would almost have to be a throw away IP if
>>it was used universally a testing IP. I used to ping redhat.com, and
>>ran into the same problem. I haven't checked the man pages, but I'd
>>assume traceroute can be used as a nearly drop in replacement.
>
>
> Except that raceroute uses ping packets.

Classic ping uses ICMP "ping request" packets, and looks for the ICMP "ping
reply" packets returned. (http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/ping.html)

OTOH, classic traceroute uses UDP packets, not ICMP ping packets, and looks
for the ICMP "Time Exceeded" error packets returned.
(http://www.kohala.com/start/papers.o...nj.99feb08.txt)

I guess that modern traceroute probably uses ICMP "Traceroute" packets.


[snip]

--
Lew Pitcher, IT Consultant, Application Architecture
Enterprise Technology Solutions, TD Bank Financial Group

(Opinions expressed here are my own, not my employer's)

Michael C. wrote:

> On Tue, 4 Nov 2003 17:01:21 +0000 (UTC),
> David Efflandt <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 04 Nov 2003 01:23:49 GMT, V. Turner <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>>
>>>Does anyone know of an IP address out there that is always guaranteed to
>>>allow pings? I've always just used 216.239.53.101 which is one of google's
>>>servers. Unfortunately, it appears recently they have disallowed pings on
>>>their machines, presumably for security reasons. I use pings as a
>>>fundamental way to test my connectivity to the internet as well as a way of
>>>bypassing DNS if that is having a problem.
>>>
>>> I was recently unable to ping the 216.239.53.101 and so assumed I had a
>>>connectivity problem. Turns out my connectivity was fine, just that they
>>>were disallowed. It seems to me that if ever wrote a diagnostic script and
>>>hard-coded an IP address, it would be nice to not have to worry about the
>>>IP address being non-pingable in the future. I'm thinking along the lines
>>>of the newsgroup alt.test which is reserved for one purpose, namely posting
>>>test messages.
>>
>>
>> Set a flag (something in a file) from /etc/ppp/ip-up and ip-down to
>> indicate whether your earthlink is connected or not. I used to set my
>> local ppp IP in a file when connected (from ip-up) and a zero if not
>> (ip-down). Then I could could assume I was connected (and know my IP) if
>> the contents of that file was not zero. Works even for demand pppd
>> without triggering a connection like ping would.
>
>
> Wouldn't `ifconfig ppp0` work just as well?

It doesn't work properly when demand-dial ppp is used, and requires more
complex scripting than the ip-up / ip-down solution requires.



--
Lew Pitcher, IT Consultant, Application Architecture
Enterprise Technology Solutions, TD Bank Financial Group

(Opinions expressed here are my own, not my employer's)

Joe Pfeiffer wrote:

> Except that raceroute uses ping packets. If you were to traceroute to
> a site, you'd find out how far you could get before you either had
> connectivity trouble, or got to a site that didn't respond to pings;
> and you wouldn't be able to know which it was.

Traceroute normally uses UDP packets, which will generate an ICMP timeout
message. Ping (ICMP) packets will not generate a timeout error message,
because error messages are not supposed to be generated for ICMP packets.

--

Fundamentalism is fundamentally wrong.

To reply to this message, replace everything to the left of "@" with
james.knott.

127.0.0.1
responds even when the net card fails

On Tue, 04 Nov 2003 01:23:49 +0000, V. Turner wrote:

> Does anyone know of an IP address out there that is always guaranteed to
> allow pings? I've always just used 216.239.53.101 which is one of google's
> servers. Unfortunately, it appears recently they have disallowed pings on
> their machines, presumably for security reasons. I use pings as a
> fundamental way to test my connectivity to the internet as well as a way of
> bypassing DNS if that is having a problem.
>
> I was recently unable to ping the 216.239.53.101 and so assumed I had a
> connectivity problem. Turns out my connectivity was fine, just that they
> were disallowed. It seems to me that if ever wrote a diagnostic script and
> hard-coded an IP address, it would be nice to not have to worry about the
> IP address being non-pingable in the future. I'm thinking along the lines
> of the newsgroup alt.test which is reserved for one purpose, namely posting
> test messages.
>
> Thanks,
>
> V. Turner