How the PING Command Works in ChromeOS

The PING command is a standard command for testing network connectivity and quality. In Chrome, PING behaves more like it does in Linux than in Windows.
 

Ping command options

Open a Chrome Shell (CROSH) terminal by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T. The command is the same.  Type: ping <hostname or IP address> then press the Enter key
 

After you stop the ping command this way, it does not display any statistics on dropped packets.

Ping –c is more useful. It lets you specify how many times to ping the specified IP address. After completing, it does display statistics. A high percentage of dropped packets may indicate noise on the network. Attempts to ping addresses outside your network may be blocked by firewalls. Example:  ping -c 6 google.com then press the Enter key.



Tracepath is similar to ping, but it gets replies from each gateway along the route. Again, firewalls may block responses to this command when the address is outside of the network. Tracepath works the same as the Windows tracert command. tracepath "URL you want to trace to" then press the Enter key.  See the example below:



Both ping and tracepath can be used with host or domain names. This can be useful for determining if networking issues are caused by domain name resolution. If you can ping an address, but you cannot ping the host/domain name, then this would point to a problem with your DNS or proxy server.

Last we have the network diagnostic function. network_diag tests the connectivity of your network connection.



All CROSH windows can be closed by typing EXIT and pressing the Enter key.