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I was learning ping command and their options.

In ping -U option is used for full user to user latency.

There is no difference for ping and ping -U option in output.

$ ping google.com
PING google.com (216.58.199.174) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from bom05s08-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.199.174): icmp_req=1 ttl=57 time=49.9 ms
64 bytes from bom05s08-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.199.174): icmp_req=2 ttl=57 time=44.6 ms
64 bytes from bom05s08-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.199.174): icmp_req=3 ttl=57 time=43.6 ms
64 bytes from bom05s08-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.199.174): icmp_req=4 ttl=57 time=45.6 ms
^C
--- google.com ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 3003ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 43.641/45.990/49.991/2.422 ms

$ ping -U google.com
PING google.com (216.58.199.174) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from bom05s08-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.199.174): icmp_req=1 ttl=57 time=54.9 ms
64 bytes from bom05s08-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.199.174): icmp_req=3 ttl=57 time=46.0 ms
64 bytes from bom05s08-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.199.174): icmp_req=4 ttl=57 time=42.8 ms
64 bytes from bom05s08-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.199.174): icmp_req=5 ttl=57 time=42.2 ms
^C
--- google.com ping statistics ---
6 packets transmitted, 4 received, 33% packet loss, time 5013ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 42.267/46.544/54.984/5.091 ms

Can anyone please explain me what is the difference between these two commands and what is the use of -U option in ping command.

suresh
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1 Answers1

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As I understand it a standard ping shows network round trip response time and a ping -U shows user to user latency. Response time and user latency can be different due to DNS failures and other network congestion.

In the example you gave .. there wasn't any issues at the time.

This may not be accurate though.... this is what I have determined after some short research

Also another nice switch for ping is the -c switch which is the ping count .. Windows pings 4 times then stops where as Ubuntu will ping until you stop it .. the -c switch will change that .. if you used ping -c 4 google.com it will ping 4 times then stop.

John Orion
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    what is meant by user to user latency ? – suresh May 06 '16 at 04:50
  • that's hard to explain since its basically almost the same definition as round trip round trip response time. Latency is round trip + server processing + client processing ... this is generalized .. there is actually a formula for it.. again .. I'm not an authority on the subject .. this is what I have taken out of a bit of reading I have done on the subject... I can be getting it wrong so if anyone has a better explanation .. feel free to correct me and I will remove the answer if its incorrect – John Orion May 06 '16 at 05:01