Ping packet loss tool

Speed is important for general Internet browsing, downloading files, and video streaming, but it is not a very good measure for performance for more communicative activities. Activities like gaming and voice chat usually do not need much raw bandwidth, but they need prompt and reliable responses. These programs also do not usually resend information if it fails to get there, so if packets get lost in transmission, they are gone for good, which can also have a significant impact.

Up until recently, web browsers have not been able to test this, as they have always retried everything until it works. Recently however, WebRTC has been added to modern browsers, finally enabling this type of test. I could not find another site that has implemented this type of test, so I made one.

This makes it very easy for anyone to test their packet loss also known as "packet drop" without downloading a more complicated tool like iPerf.

At certain points in the day, like during rush hour or after lunch when all the employees in a large company are going back to their desks, there are too many cars on the road. Things get even worse when a four-lane highway narrows into a two-lane road, and a lot of cars are looking to merge at the exact same time. Highway traffic is a fact of life and so is packet loss. When network traffic hits maximum capacity, packets will have to wait to be delivered.

Unfortunately, packets are the first things to get left behind when a network is trying to catch up with traffic and the connection can only handle so much. Luckily, most software today will circle back for those discarded packets by automatically resending the data or slowing down transfer speeds to give each packet a chance to make it through. Glitchy, old, or otherwise outdated hardware can significantly weaken your network.

Firewalls, routers, and network switches all take up a considerable amount of power. Unchecked bugs in your system can disrupt network performance and prevent it from sufficiently carrying packets. Sometimes rebooting your hardware will solve this, but since bugs are often introduced during hardware updates, the whole thing will need to be patched. Simply put, this means your system is running at a higher capacity than it was designed to handle.

In fact, packets on overutilized devices sometimes make it to their destinations, but by then the network is too weak to process the packets and send them back out. Many devices have buffers in place to put packets in holding patterns until they can be sent out.

However, these buffers can get filled up quickly and excess packets are still dropped. We also cannot ignore the possibility of someone deliberately tampering with your network and causing packet loss. Packet drop attacks have become popular with cybercriminals in recent years.

Essentially, a hacker gets into your router and tells it to drop packets. If you notice a sudden drop in packet success or a significant slowdown in network speed, you could be in the midst of an attack.

Hackers execute a denial-of-service attack by flooding the network with too much traffic for the network to handle, and it crashes.

The attackers then take advantage of this vulnerability. Invest in a SIEM solution , create a disaster recovery plan, update your firewall and, as always, keep yourself up to date on the latest antivirus software.

Such attacks are rare—there are more common causes out there for packet issues. Many IT administrators cobble together a networking monitoring system out of different tools. Without a comprehensive, seamless network monitoring solution, opportunities to stop or prevent packet loss fall through the cracks. Wondering how to reduce packet loss? Zero percent packet loss is unachievable because the things causing it, like network issues, too many users, or an overloaded system, are bound to pop up.

Any solutions recommended here or elsewhere are ways to help fix the problem after the fact, not prevent them from occurring. The key to preventing or lessening the impact of packet loss is network visibility. A problem you can see is a problem you can solve. The tools listed below, in addition to boasting features specific to packet loss, can be used to give you a more comprehensive view of your network.

Both tasks are accomplished with networking monitoring best practices. NPM is an excellent choice for admins who have to keep watch over a large systems environment—the hop-by-hop packet path maps are especially useful, as you can quickly see if the problem lies inside or outside the network, and the tool provides the info you need to start addressing the issue quickly.

This function highlights the problem links in red, making troubleshooting easy. Also, NetPath displays each router and switch in the network route as a node.

If you hover over the node, it pulls up the latency and packet loss statistics. Along the same lines, the LUCID logical, usable, customizable, interactive, drill-down user interface in NPM gives you a complete summary of all network activity, device status, and alerts, so you can see how your system is doing without having to toggle between different screens.

Bonus: NPM is fully customizable. Being able to see everything is great, but at the same time, nobody wants to be bombarded with that much information all the time. The auto-discovery function in Network Performance Monitor also deserves a special mention.

After you set it up for the first time, it recurs automatically, so any changes made to the network will show up in the tool. It also compiles a list of all the network devices in your environment and creates a network map.

Now you can combat packet loss before it even happens. The information delivered is highly valuable for network troubleshooting tasks. The tool saves time and helps prevent organizations from making costly errors. It uses active scanning to discover devices, subnets, and associated address blocks to identify abandoned IP addresses. Its ICMP ping sweep function allows teams to ping the entire network to get real-time data.

With its IP alerting and reporting feature, teams can easily troubleshoot IP address conflicts, and quickly resolve network issues affecting the overall performance of the organization.

Paessler PRTG is a network monitoring solution with a ping tool to test connections on your network. PRTG works on a sensor-based model, which means admins can add sensors to any device and create inheritable parent tags, set scanning intervals, and select a priority. Teams can define dependencies, automate responses, and prioritize tasks based on alarms. This helps them get notified via alerts if a system goes offline and cannot be reached.

The ping sensors are extremely helpful in identifying packet loss, displaying minimum and maximum latencies, and monitoring the current network state. ManageEngine Free Ping and Traceroute Tool effectively monitors the availability of servers, routers, switches, mail servers, and websites.

This tool helps fetch packet loss percentage, round-trip time of ping and its response, and the number of hops. Teams can view the successful and failed pings and monitor the status of the host using alerts. The tool gives a graphical representation of TCP connection time, redirection time, and response time of websites. It performs remote network monitoring via agents available on several devices. Administrators get a detailed view of the health of their network with summarized screens and jitter graphs.

The tool also consists of an excellent GUI for representing data loss and latency.