Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook - Third Edition

Limiting the number of packets to be sent

The ping command sends echo packets and waits for the reply of echo indefinitely until it is stopped by pressing Ctrl + C. The -c flag will limit the count of echo packets to be sent:

-c COUNT 

Consider this example:

$ ping 192.168.0.1 -c 2  
PING 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 56(84) bytes of data.  
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=4.02 ms 
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=1.03 ms 
 
--- 192.168.0.1 ping statistics ---  
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 1001ms  
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 1.039/2.533/4.028/1.495 ms 

In the previous example, the ping command sends two echo packets and stops. This is useful when we need to ping multiple machines from a list ...