Ping protocol basics with Ping request and Ping Response
This page covers ping protocol(ICMP) basics and provide example with various fields carried in a typical Ping Request and Ping Response message.
Ping protocol is basically ICMP family of protocols. It is mainly used to check connectivity from one IP enabled system with the another IP enabled system. One can do the ping from one source PC to the other destination PC and can determine whether the destination PC is reachable or not. The medium between the PC can be cable or wireless. It can be checked for various networks such as LAN,WAN,WLAN,WiMAX,GSM,CDMA,LTE, etc.
As shown in figure,Ping protocol comprises of Ping request and Ping Response. Ping Request is sent from Source PC to destination PC. In a reply to ping request, ping response is sent back from destination PC to the source PC. Following table mentions example of a typical ping request and ping response protocol with various fields. It is clear from the table that in ideal scenario when there is no problem, all the bytes received in data portion of the ping request is copied and sent back in ping response by destination PC. The protocol described here is as per IPV4 .
| Byte position | Description | Ping Request(Received),Hex | Ping Response(Transmitted),Hex |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 2 3 4 5 6 |
Destination MAC address | 00 A0 C9 E7 31 45 |
00 A0 C9 22 89 56 |
| 7 8 9 10 11 12 |
Source MAC address | 00 A0 C9 22 89 56 |
00 A0 C9 E7 31 45 |
| 13 14 |
Type | 08 00 |
08 00 |
| 15 | Version | 45 | 45 |
| 16 | Type of service | 00 | 00 |
| 17 18 |
Length of packet including IP header | 00 3C |
00 3C |
| 19 20 |
Unique ID | 4F 00 |
4F 00 |
| 21 22 |
Offset | 00 00 |
00 00 |
| 23 | TTL | 20 | 20 |
| 24 | Protocol | 01 | 01 |
| 25 26 |
Checksum of IP header | EF 16 |
EF 16 |
| 27 28 29 30 |
IP source address | AC 12 02 47 |
AC 12 02 3F |
| 31 32 33 34 |
IP Dest.address | AC 12 02 3F |
AC 12 02 47 |
| 35 36 |
Type:Request Code | 08 00 |
00 00 |
| 37 38 |
ICMP checksum | 3E 5C |
46 5C |
| 39 40 |
ID | 01 00 |
01 00 |
| 41 42 |
Sequence Number | 0E 00 |
0E 00 |
| 43 to 74 | 32 bytes of data for pinging | constant 32 hex bytes | constant 32 hex bytes(same as col.3) |
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