A
utility to determine whether a specific
IP address is accessible. It works by sending a
packet to the specified address and waiting for a reply. PING is used primarily to troubleshoot
Internet connections. There are many
freeware and
shareware Ping utilities available for personal computers.
It is often believed that "Ping" is an abbreviation for Packet Internet Groper, but Ping's author has stated that the names comes from the sound that a sonar makes.