ping for connectivity testing in Linux CLI - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Ping for Connectivity Testing

📖 Scenario: You are a network technician who needs to check if certain devices on your network are reachable. You will use the ping command to test connectivity to these devices.

🎯 Goal: Build a simple script that stores a list of IP addresses, sets a count for ping attempts, runs the ping command on each IP, and displays the results.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a list of IP addresses to test

Set a variable for the number of ping attempts

Use a loop to ping each IP address the set number of times

Display the ping results for each IP

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Network administrators often need to check if devices are reachable to troubleshoot connectivity issues.

💼 Career

Knowing how to automate ping tests helps in monitoring network health and diagnosing problems quickly.

1

Create the list of IP addresses

Create a variable called ip_addresses that is a list containing these exact IP addresses as strings: '8.8.8.8', '8.8.4.4', and '1.1.1.1'.

Linux CLI

# Create the list of IP addresses
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use parentheses to create a list of strings in bash.

2

Set the ping count variable

Create a variable called ping_count and set it to 3 to specify the number of ping attempts per IP.

Linux CLI

ip_addresses=('8.8.8.8' '8.8.4.4' '1.1.1.1')
# Set the ping count variable
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Assign the number 3 to the variable ping_count without spaces around the equals sign.

3

Ping each IP address

Use a for loop with the variable ip to iterate over ip_addresses. Inside the loop, run the command ping -c $ping_count $ip to ping each IP the set number of times.

Linux CLI

ip_addresses=('8.8.8.8' '8.8.4.4' '1.1.1.1')
ping_count=3
# Use a for loop to ping each IP
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use "${ip_addresses[@]}" to loop over all IPs in the list.

4

Display the ping results

Add a echo statement inside the loop to print "Pinging $ip:" before running the ping command. This will label the output for each IP address.

Linux CLI

ip_addresses=('8.8.8.8' '8.8.4.4' '1.1.1.1')
ping_count=3
for ip in "${ip_addresses[@]}"
do
    # Print label before ping
    # Your code here
    ping -c $ping_count $ip
    echo "---"
done

Need a hint?

Use echo "Pinging $ip:" to show which IP is being pinged.