Ping a Compute Engine virtual machine
Contributed by Google employees.
Pinging is a common method of testing the reachability of a host (like a virtual machine) from an external network.
Sending a ping to a host entails sending an ICMP packet to the target and waiting for a response. A ping also provides a measure of the round-trip time between a client and host.
Pinging is also a handy utility to check the DNS resolution of a domain name you may have configured using Cloud DNS.
Obtain the domain name or virtual machine IP address
Locate the domain name
To locate a domain name (or hostname) that you've configured, open Cloud DNS in the Cloud Console.
Select a zone that you have previously configured. The zone's DNS name (e.g.,
examplepetstore.com) can be used for pinging/DNS resolution.
Locate the IP address
To locate the external IP address of a virtual machine, open the Compute Engine instances page in the Cloud Console.
Identify the virtual machine that you want to ping. Copy the IP address listed under the External IP column in the table.
Ping from a Windows client
On Microsoft Windows clients (e.g., a desktop running Windows 10), you ping with the Command Prompt application. To ping a
hostname (e.g., example.com), perform the following steps:
Open a command prompt by opening the Start menu and typing
cmd.Type
ping example.com, replacingexample.comwith your domain name, and press Enter. You should see results similar to the following:Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.17134.706] (c) 2018 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. C:\Users\username>ping example.com Pinging example.com [93.184.216.34] with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 93.184.216.34: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=56 Reply from 93.184.216.34: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=56 Reply from 93.184.216.34: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=56 Reply from 93.184.216.34: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=56 Ping statistics for 93.184.216.34: Packets: Sent = 4, Received =4, Lost = 0 (0% loss), Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: Minimum = 11ms, Maximum = 12ms, Average = 11ms
The IP address associated with the domain name you enter is written in brackets.
To ping an IP address instead, replace the domain name in the command with the IP address. For example:
ping 93.184.216.34
Ping from a macOS client
On macOS clients (e.g., iMac, MacBook), you ping with the Terminal application. To ping a hostname (e.g., example.com),
perform the following steps:
Press Command+Space to open Spotlight Search, type
Terminaland press Enter.Type
ping example.com, replacingexample.comwith your domain name, and press Enter. You should see results similar to the following:mycomputer:~ username$ ping example.com PING example.com (93.184.216.34): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 93.184.216.34: icmp_seq=0 ttl=56 time=7.471 ms 64 bytes from 93.184.216.34: icmp_seq=1 ttl=56 time=4.647 ms 64 bytes from 93.184.216.34: icmp_seq=2 ttl=56 time=3.545 ms 64 bytes from 93.184.216.34: icmp_seq=3 ttl=56 time=3.389 ms --- example.com ping statistics --- 4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0.0% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 2.315/3.881/7.471/1.371 ms
On macOS, the ping command will continue to run until you close the Terminal window or stop the ping application by pressing Ctrl+C.
The IP address associated with the domain name you enter is written in parentheses.
To ping an IP address instead, replace the domain name in the command with the IP address. For example:
ping 93.184.216.34
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