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I am trying to perform a ping a test to the servers for 4 hours I tried using

ping -t '14400' IP-ADDRESS

but i am getting a following error: "ping: ttl 14400 out of range" Is there any other way around it?

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no, its on linux based system. –  Ravdeep Oct 7 '13 at 21:49

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up vote 2 down vote accepted

The t option to ping sets the time-to-live field in the packet, this has nothing to do with how many pings are sent or for what duration. IIRC the IPV4 TTL field typically limits the number of routers the packet may traverse (max "hops").

You should probably use ping -c count -i interval for example ping -c 240 -i 60 would send one ping every 60 seconds for four hours.

This probably isn't a good use of ping. The manual says

This program is intended for use in network testing, measurement and management. Because of the load it can impose on the network it is unwise to use ping during normal operations or from automated scripts.

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Thanks for the clarification. Its really helpful. –  Ravdeep Oct 7 '13 at 22:46
Unless you own the server you're pinging, you probably should find another way to do whatever it is that you are trying to do. Otherwise, you could be bringing some trouble on yourself, seriously, and I can't imagine what information this would provide to you other than that the server is still alive -- even then, a bad way to check. –  Debra Oct 8 '13 at 1:25

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