I'm not a real fan of the ping(1) command, but at an exam I saw a teacher asking the student about such command, and what came out is something I'd like to discuss to see who is wrong.
teacher: can ping be used to measure the network speed?
student:yes of course
I don't think so, or well, ping is not the best tool to measure the network speed, while it can be used to measure latency. Moreover, ping sends small packets, while other protocols can send bigger packets and therefore fragmentation can come into the scene. While ping has an option to specify the packet size, I see ping as the poor man test command. Moreover, ICMP traffic can be blocked or filtered to avoid bursts, and therefore the latency reported/obtained from ping could be inaccurate.
Comments?
teacher: can ping be used to measure the network speed?
student:yes of course
I don't think so, or well, ping is not the best tool to measure the network speed, while it can be used to measure latency. Moreover, ping sends small packets, while other protocols can send bigger packets and therefore fragmentation can come into the scene. While ping has an option to specify the packet size, I see ping as the poor man test command. Moreover, ICMP traffic can be blocked or filtered to avoid bursts, and therefore the latency reported/obtained from ping could be inaccurate.
Comments?