fping/doc/fping.pod

=head1 NAME

fping - send ICMP ECHO_REQUEST packets to network hosts

=head1 SYNOPSIS

B<fping> [ I<options> ] [ I<systems...> ] 
B<fping6> [ I<options> ] [ I<systems...> ] 

=head1 DESCRIPTION

B<fping> is a program like B<ping> which uses the Internet Control Message
Protocol (ICMP) echo request to determine if a target host is responding.
B<fping> differs from B<ping> in that you can specify any number of targets on the
command line, or specify a file containing the lists of targets to ping.
Instead of sending to one target until it times out or replies, B<fping> will
send out a ping packet and move on to the next target in a round-robin fashion.
In the default mode, if a target replies, it is noted and removed from the list
of targets to check; if a target does not respond within a certain time limit
and/or retry limit it is designated as unreachable. B<fping> also supports
sending a specified number of pings to a target, or looping indefinitely (as in
B<ping> ). Unlike B<ping>, B<fping> is meant to be used in scripts, so its
output is designed to be easy to parse.

The binary named B<fping6> is the same as B<fping>, except that it uses IPv6
addresses instead of IPv4.

=head1 OPTIONS

=over 5

=item B<-a>

Show systems that are alive. 

=item B<-A>

Display targets by address rather than DNS name. 

=item B<-b> I<n>

Number of bytes of ping data to send.  The minimum size (normally 12) allows
room for the data that B<fping> needs to do its work (sequence number,
timestamp).  The reported received data size includes the IP header (normally
20 bytes) and ICMP header (8 bytes), so the minimum total size is 40 bytes.
Default is 56, as in B<ping>. Maximum is the theoretical maximum IP datagram
size (64K), though most systems limit this to a smaller, system-dependent
number. 

=item B<-B> I<n>

Backoff factor. In the default mode, B<fping> sends several requests to a
target before giving up, waiting longer for a reply on each successive request.
This parameter is the value by which the wait time is multiplied on each
successive request; it must be entered as a floating-point number (x.y).  The
default is 1.5. 

=item B<-c> I<n>

Number of request packets to send to each target.  In this mode, a line is
displayed for each received response (this can suppressed with B<-q> or B<-Q>).
Also, statistics about responses for each target are displayed when all
requests have been sent (or when interrupted). 

=item B<-C> I<n>

Similar to B<-c>, but the per-target statistics are displayed in a format
designed for automated response-time statistics gathering. For example: 

 % fping -C 5 -q somehost 
 somehost : 91.7 37.0 29.2 - 36.8 

shows the response time in milliseconds for each of the five requests, with the
C<-> indicating that no response was received to the fourth request. 

=item B<-d>

Use DNS to lookup address of return ping packet. This allows you to give fping
a list of IP addresses as input and print hostnames in the output. 

=item B<-D>

Add Unix timestamps in front of output lines generated with in looping or counting
modes (B<-l>, B<-c>, or B<-C>).

=item B<-e>

Show elapsed (round-trip) time of packets. 

=item B<-f>

Read list of targets from a file.  This option can only be used by the root
user. Regular users should pipe in the file via stdin: 

 % fping < targets_file 

=item B<-g> I<addr/mask>

Generate a target list from a supplied IP netmask, or a starting and ending IP.
Specify the netmask or start/end in the targets portion of the command line. If
a network with netmask is given, the network and broadcast addresses will be
excluded. ex. To ping the network 192.168.1.0/24, the specified command line
could look like either:

 fping -g 192.168.1.0/24 

or 

 fping -g 192.168.1.1 192.168.1.254 

=item B<-h>

Print usage message.

=item B<-i> I<n>

The minimum amount of time (in milliseconds) between sending a ping packet
to any target (default is 25). 

=item B<-l>

Loop sending packets to each target indefinitely. Can be interrupted with
Ctrl-C; statistics about responses for each target are then displayed. 

=item B<-m>

Send pings to each of a target host's multiple interfaces.

=item B<-n>

Same as -d. 

=item B<-p> <n>

In looping or counting modes (B<-l>, B<-c>, or B<-C>), this parameter sets
the time in milliseconds that B<fping> waits between successive packets to
an individual target.  Default is 1000. 

=item B<-q>

Quiet. Don't show per-probe results, but only the final summary. Also don't
show ICMP error messages.

=item B<-Q> I<n>

Like B<-q>, but show summary results every n seconds.

=item B<-r> I<n>

Retry limit (default 3). This is the number of times an attempt at pinging
a target will be made, not including the first try. 

=item B<-s>

Print cumulative statistics upon exit. 

=item B<-S> I<addr>

Set source address. 

=item B<-I> I<if>

Set the interface (requires SO_BINDTODEVICE support) 

=item B<-t> I<n>

Initial target timeout in milliseconds (default 500). In the default mode, this
is the amount of time that B<fping> waits for a response to its first request.
Successive timeouts are multiplied by the backoff factor. 

=item B<-T> I<n>

Ignored (for compatibility with fping 2.4). 

=item B<-u>

Show targets that are unreachable. 

=item B<-O> I<n>

Set the typ of service flag (TOS). I<n> can be either decimal or hexadecimal
(0xh) format. 

=item B<-v>

Print B<fping> version information. 

=item B<-H> I<n>

Set the IP TTL field (time to live hops). 

=back

=head1 AUTHORS

=over 4

=item *

Roland J. Schemers III, Stanford University, concept and versions 1.x

=item *

RL "Bob" Morgan, Stanford University, versions 2.x

=item *

David Papp, versions 2.3x and up

=item *

David Schweikert, versions 3.0 and up

=back

B<fping website: L<http://www.fping.org>>

=head1 DIAGNOSTICS

Exit status is 0 if all the hosts are reachable, 1 if some hosts
were unreachable, 2 if any IP addresses were not found, 3 for invalid command
line arguments, and 4 for a system call failure.

=head1 RESTRICTIONS

If certain options are used (i.e, a low value for B<-i> and B<-t>, and a high value
for B<-r>) it is possible to flood the network. This program must be installed as
setuid root in order to open up a raw socket, or must be run by root. In order
to stop mere mortals from hosing the network, normal users can't specify the following: 

=over 4

=item *

B<-i> I<n>, where I<n> < 10 msec

=item *

B<-r> I<n>, where I<n> > 20

=item *

B<-t> I<n>, where n < 250 msec

=back

=head1 SEE ALSO

C<ping(8)>