I recently had a coworker tell me that we should *always* ping by *name*, *not* by number. The reason as explained is because the resolution takes place at a "higher level" on the OSI stack. And pinging the number does nothing but "tell you that the 'connection' to the machine is okay."
Huh?! Isn't pinging by name just the same as pinging by number, only adding a step for the name resolution?
% ping 10.0.0.5 +-----+ +-------+ | work station -----> | 10.0.0.5 +-----+ +-------+
% ping myserver +-----+ +-------+ | work station -----> | myserver +-----+ +-------+ | | +-----+ | DNS/WINS # myserver = 10.0.0.5 +-----+
I added WINS here because, well, we have a Windoze LAN and the server in question is a remote Exchange server.
I think what my esteemed MCSE colleague was wanting to explain that pinging is not as effective as telneting to the check the service in question.
My understanding of the our network is that many times it's not our remote Exchange host, but the connection between us that is the problem, and pinging by name or number is just fine as a test.
For instance if I wanted to check my webserver to see if it was "up" I could
%ping mywebserver #OR
%ping 10.0.0.10 #mywebserver
But this tells me nothing about the HTTPD service. So I would be better off
%telnet mywebserver 80 #OR
%telnet 10.0.0.10 80 #OR
%curl -I http://mywebserver #via cygwin of course
Telnet|cURL would tell me both things: the webserver is up and the HTTPD is answering connections.
Would any one mind elaborating on the pinging a number v. name for me? Or is she right?
Thanks in advance. Tim
-- redhat-list mailing list unsubscribe mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
