received, 0
round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 3/8/12
If you don't see similar output, something is broken. If you encounter unusual packet loss rates, this hints at a hardware problem, like bad or missing terminators. If you don't receive any replies at all, you should check the interface configuration with netstat described later in Section 5.9 ". The packet statistics displayed by ifconfig should tell you whether any packets have been sent out on the interface at all. If you have access to the remote host too, you should go over to that machine and check the interface statistics. This way you can determine exactly where the packets got dropped. In addition, you should display the routing information with route to see if both hosts have the correct routing entry. route prints out the complete kernel routing table when invoked without any arguments (–n just makes it print addresses as dotted quad instead of using the hostname):
# route -n
Kernel routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
127.0.0.1 * 255.255.255.255 UH 1 0 112 lo
172.16.1.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 1 0 10 eth0
The detailed meaning of these fields is explained later in Section 5.9 ." The Flags column contains a list of flags set for each interface. U is always set for active interfaces, and H says the destination address denotes a host. If the H flag is set for a route that you meant to be a network route, you have to reissue the route command with the –net option. To check whether a route you have entered is used at all, check to see if the Use field in the second to last column increases between two invocations of ping .