ping
from
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006)
Ping
n 1: a river in western Thailand; a major tributary of the Chao
Phraya [syn: {Ping}, {Ping River}]
2: a sharp high-pitched resonant sound (as of a sonar echo or a
bullet striking metal)
v 1: hit with a pinging noise; "The bugs pinged the lamp shade"
2: sound like a car engine that is firing too early; "the car
pinged when I put in low-octane gasoline"; "The car pinked
when the ignition was too far retarded" [syn: {pink}, {ping},
{knock}]
3: make a short high-pitched sound; "the bullet pinged when they
struck the car"
4: contact, usually in order to remind of something; "I'll ping
my accountant--April 15 is nearing"
5: send a message from one computer to another to check whether
it is reachable and active; "ping your machine in the office"
from
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
backfire \backfire\, back fire \back fire\
1. A fire started ahead of a forest or prairie fire to burn
only against the wind, so that when the two fires meet
both must go out for lack of fuel.
[Webster 1913 Suppl.]
2.
(a) A premature explosion in the cylinder of a gas or oil
engine during the exhaust or the compression stroke,
tending to drive the piston in a direction reverse to
that in which it should travel; also called a {knock}
or {ping}.
(b) an explosion in the exhaust passages of an internal
combustion engine.
[Webster 1913 Suppl. +PJC] Backfire
from
Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003)
ping
[from the submariners' term for a sonar pulse]
1. n. Slang term for a small network message (ICMP ECHO) sent by a
computer to check for the presence and alertness of another. The Unix
command ping(8) can be used to do this manually (note that ping(8)'s
author denies the widespread folk etymology that the name was ever
intended as an acronym for `Packet INternet Groper'). Occasionally
used as a phone greeting. See {ACK}, also {ENQ}.
2. vt. To verify the presence of.
3. vt. To get the attention of.
4. vt. To send a message to all members of a {mailing list} requesting
an {ACK} (in order to verify that everybody's addresses are
reachable). "We haven't heard much of anything from Geoff, but he did
respond with an ACK both times I pinged jargon-friends."
5. n. A quantum packet of happiness. People who are very happy tend to
exude pings; furthermore, one can intentionally create pings and aim
them at a needy party (e.g., a depressed person). This sense of ping
may appear as an exclamation; "Ping!" (I'm happy; I am emitting a
quantum of happiness; I have been struck by a quantum of happiness).
The form "pingfulness", which is used to describe people who exude
pings, also occurs. (In the standard abuse of language, "pingfulness"
can also be used as an exclamation, in which case it's a much stronger
exclamation than just "ping"!). Oppose {blargh}.
The funniest use of `ping' to date was described in January 1991 by
Steve Hayman on the Usenet group comp.sys.next. He was trying to
isolate a faulty cable segment on a TCP/IP Ethernet hooked up to a
NeXT machine, and got tired of having to run back to his console after
each cabling tweak to see if the ping packets were getting through. So
he used the sound-recording feature on the NeXT, then wrote a script
that repeatedly invoked ping(8), listened for an echo, and played back
the recording on each returned packet. Result? A program that caused
the machine to repeat, over and over, "Ping ... ping ... ping ..." as
long as the network was up. He turned the volume to maximum, ferreted
through the building with one ear cocked, and found a faulty tee
connector in no time.
from
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
ping
Packet InterNet Groper
ping command
pinging
<networking, tool> (ping, originally contrived to match
submariners' term for the sound of a returned sonar pulse) A
program written in 1983 by Mike Muuss (who also wrote {TTCP})
used to test reachability of destinations by sending them one,
or repeated, {ICMP} echo requests and waiting for replies.
Since ping works at the {IP} level its server-side is often
implemented entirely within the {operating system} {kernel}
and is thus the lowest level test of whether a remote host is
alive. Ping will often respond even when higher level,
{TCP}-based services cannot.
Sadly, Mike Muuss was killed in a road accident on 2000-11-20.
The term is also used as a verb: "Ping host X to see if it is
up."
The {Unix} command "ping" can be used to do this and to
measure round-trip delays.
The funniest use of "ping" was described in January 1991 by
Steve Hayman on the {Usenet} group comp.sys.next. He was
trying to isolate a faulty cable segment on a {TCP/IP}
{Ethernet} hooked up to a {NeXT} machine. Using the sound
recording feature on the NeXT, he wrote a {script} that
repeatedly invoked ping, listened for an echo, and played back
the recording on each returned {packet}. This caused the
machine to repeat, over and over, "Ping ... ping ... ping ..."
as long as the network was up. He turned the volume to
maximum, ferreted through the building with one ear cocked,
and found a faulty tee connector in no time.
Ping did not stand for "Packet InterNet Groper", Dave Mills
offered this {backronym} expansion some time later.
See also {ACK}, {ENQ}, {traceroute}, {spray}.
The Story of the Ping Program
(http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/ping.html).
{Unix manual page}: ping(8).
(2005-06-22)
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