Hello! I’m trying to ping some lemmy instances to understand which one is the faster, so I’m just using the ping command:

$ ping lemmy.ml
PING lemmy.ml (54.36.178.108) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from lemmy.ml (54.36.178.108): icmp_seq=1 ttl=49 time=24.4 ms

ping lemmy.world
PING lemmy.world (135.181.143.230) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from static.230.143.181.135.clients.your-server.de (135.181.143.230): icmp_seq=1 ttl=52 time=58.2 ms

but if I try with certain instances:

ping vlemmy.net
PING vlemmy.net (109.78.160.70) 56(84) bytes of data.

it just hangs there, forever. if I try to ctrl+C it, it displays

^C
--- vlemmy.net ping statistics ---
13 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 12267ms

why does this happens? I can perfectly visit vlemmy.net from my browser so I really can’t understand whay is this happening

  • Max_Power@feddit.de
    5·
    1 year ago

    ping nowadays is overrated anyway. If a server responds to ICMP and how fast it does it does not really say much about “how fast” a website is. It only tells you that a) ICMP requests and responses are not blocked and b) how fast ICMP requests get answered.

    That’s it. It may not even tell you that a website is online because a load balancer may be responding to the ICMP request while the hosts behind it are offline.

    People value ping responses way too highly.

    httping may be a better tool to measure “how fast” a website is responding.

    • Sebito@lemmy.ml
      1·
      1 year ago

      Also every major browser has a tool for timing and seing how long a site and it’s components load. You could test it with that but even then; load times will vary slightly depending on what the instances have to load.

      But probably a better way than pings ¯_(ツ)_/¯

      • Max_Power@feddit.de
        1·
        1 year ago

        Correct, especially with all the dynamic loading and rendering websites nowadays do measuring in a web browser is waaay better than doing ICMP/ping requests or even httping requests.

        It depends on what you are trying to measure ofc but ICMP/ping does not tell you almost anything about how fast a website is.

    • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
      1·
      1 year ago

      People value ping responses way too highly.

      I beg to differ. Not everyone’s use of the internet is limited to http(s) - ping is an invaluable tool to determine round trip times of the underlying network infrastructure & therefore assess e.g. the potential throughput of TCP based protocols for given window sizes. Also, to assess delay in UDP based communication.