gping, mtr and nmap
pings
In most cases when trying to network connectivity ping is just enough for checking the latency of a connection to a given host.
$ ping 8.8.8.8
PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=1 ttl=54 time=6.64 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=2 ttl=54 time=15.2 ms
^C
--- 8.8.8.8 ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 1002ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 6.644/10.901/15.159/4.257 ms
but there are often cases when you want to view a graphed form of your ping statistics over time, that is where gping comes in.
$ gping -s 1.1.1.1
1.1.1.1 (1.1.1.1) last 6.11ms min 5.19ms max 58.9ms avg 8.458ms jtr 360µs p95 23.1ms t/o 0
56.199ms│
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│ •
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47.611ms│ •
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39.023ms│ ••
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30.435ms│ • ••
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21.847ms│ • •• • •
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13.259ms│• • • •• • •• •
│• • • • • •• • • ••
│ • • •• • • •• •• • ••
│ • •• • • •• • • •• • •••• • • • • •• • ••
│ ••••• ••• •• •• ••• • •••• • • • •• •••••••• •••• •• • ••• • • •• • •••• •• •• •• • ••
│ • • • • • ••• • • •• •• ••• • • ••• • •• •••••••••• •••• • •• ••••• ••
4.671ms │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
19:25:14 19:25:29 19:25:44
(note I use -s here due to hugo having issues rendering braille characters as monospace)
On top of being able to graph out ping with the cmd argument you’re able to do the same for any arbirary command other than just ping, for example with sleep:
$ gping -s --cmd 'sleep 0.1'
sleep 0.1 last 102.203min 101.138max 102.509avg 102.083mjtr 27µs p95 102.467mt/o 0
109.654ms│
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106.549ms│
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103.444ms│
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│ •• •• ••
│ •••••••• •• •••••••• •••••• •• •• ••••••••••• • •••• ••••••••••••••• •••••••• •••••••••
100.339ms│ •• • •• •• •• •• ••• •• ••
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97.234ms │
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94.129ms │
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91.024ms │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
19:28:31 19:28:46 19:29:01
routes
Similar is true for the traceroute command:
$ traceroute 1.1.1.1
traceroute to 1.1.1.1 (1.1.1.1), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 100.80.240.2 (100.80.240.2) 3.450 ms 3.407 ms 3.397 ms
2 m-core-vlan2966-gw.ucsd.edu (132.239.255.114) 3.367 ms 3.357 ms 3.255 ms
3 vlan3574-nat-in-fg-vip.ucsd.edu (172.16.251.60) 3.252 ms 3.243 ms 3.233 ms
4 * vl3575-nat-out-m-core.ucsd.edu (132.239.251.58) 3.181 ms 3.173 ms
5 mx0-vlan2761-gw.ucsd.edu (132.239.254.162) 3.165 ms 3.157 ms 3.149 ms
6 sand1-agg-01--ucsd--100g--01.cenic.net (137.164.23.176) 3.664 ms 2.594 ms 2.554 ms
7 tus-agg8--sand1-agg-01--300g--01.cenic.net (137.164.11.84) 6.180 ms 5.434 ms 5.417 ms
8 141.101.72.12 (141.101.72.12) 5.255 ms 5.240 ms 5.223 ms
9 * 162.158.88.5 (162.158.88.5) 5.334 ms 172.70.208.4 (172.70.208.4) 6.057 ms
10 one.one.one.one (1.1.1.1) 5.149 ms 5.134 ms 5.121 ms
With the same command if we use mtr it will give us a persistant traceroute along with running ping statistics to a given hop.
$ mtr 1.1.1.1
My traceroute [v0.95]
magnapinnidae (100.80.240.228) -> 1.1.1.1 (1.1.1.1) 2023-11-30T19:33:43-0800
Keys: Help Display mode Restart statistics Order of fields quit
Packets Pings
Host Loss% Snt Last Avg Best Wrst StDev
1. 100.80.240.2 0.0% 22 3.1 4.8 2.4 37.9 7.4
2. m-core-vlan2966-gw.ucsd.edu 20.0% 21 2.7 3.7 2.6 6.9 1.1
3. vlan3574-nat-in-fg-vip.ucsd.edu 0.0% 21 10.3 4.6 2.4 14.5 3.0
4. vl3575-nat-out-m-core.ucsd.edu 33.3% 21 2.8 3.5 2.5 4.5 0.6
5. mx0-vlan2761-gw.ucsd.edu 0.0% 21 3.7 4.3 2.6 9.9 1.9
6. sand1-agg-01--ucsd--100g--01.cenic.net 0.0% 21 3.5 6.3 2.9 27.5 5.6
7. tus-agg8--sand1-agg-01--300g--01.cenic.net 0.0% 21 8.6 7.4 5.9 14.0 2.0
8. 141.101.72.12 0.0% 21 14.2 9.5 5.8 36.7 6.8
9. 172.70.204.4 0.0% 21 67.2 14.2 5.8 67.2 16.4
10. one.one.one.one 0.0% 21 5.5 6.8 5.5 13.0 1.8
We can even change how its displayed with by hitting d:
$ mtr 1.1.1.1
My traceroute [v0.95]
magnapinnidae (100.80.240.228) -> 1.1.1.1 (1.1.1.1) 2023-11-30T19:37:14-0800
Keys: Help Display mode Restart statistics Order of fields quit
Last 84 pings
1. 100.80.240.2 ..................................................1..1.....13.......................
2. m-core-vlan2966-gw.ucsd. ?1.?..?..?.??1.?..?...??..??.....???...?...1.......?1...?.?.1??..........????..?....
3. vlan3574-nat-in-fg-vip.u ................................................1.11.......3a.......................
4. vl3575-nat-out-m-core.uc ..?..??..???.?.?.?.....?.??.?.?....?.....???.2.?....??.??.?.?.??..?...1....?.?.11?..
5. mx0-vlan2761-gw.ucsd.edu 2..........1.2...........................1...1..2..1.1.....3.........1..............
6. sand1-agg-01--ucsd--100g ..1...................1.......1...............12...11..1..1.......................11
7. tus-agg8--sand1-agg-01-- 1..1.....111.....1..........11...............2..1.1.1.....11............111.......1.
8. 141.101.72.12 1......1.1..1.11........2...1.11...1.....2111b211...3....11a.11....1.11.1.2.11....1
9. 172.70.204.4 ...11.1.....1....11.1...1.11111...11.11......311.11.2111..12...1.1...1...1..1..11..
10. one.one.one.one ..............................1................1...111....221......1.1.............
Scale: .:7 ms 1:25 ms 2:54 ms 3:95 ms a:147 ms b:211 ms c:287 ms >
Where ? denotes any dropped packets and > denotes that the ping to that given host returned faster than the previous hop due to how routes are dynamically determined. Note this is just the brief of it you can also export the data for any external analysis.
exploration
Outside of pure connectivity we also may want to know what ports and possibly services are open to those and that is where nmap comes in.
For basic utiization for scanning a subnet nmap 10.0.0.1/24 is much better interms of scanning a subnet rather than a bash for loop with ping for i in $(seq 1 255); do ping -c1 -t2 10.0.0.$i; done.
If you try such on the UCSD-PROTECTED wifi it will give you:
$ nmap 100.80.240.228/20
Starting Nmap 7.94 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2023-11-30 19:44 PST
mass_dns: warning: Unable to determine any DNS servers. Reverse DNS is disabled. Try using --system-dns or specify
valid servers with --dns-servers
Nmap scan report for 100.80.240.1
Host is up (0.0000010s latency).
All 1000 scanned ports on 100.80.240.1 are in ignored states.
Not shown: 1000 filtered tcp ports (net-unreach)
Nmap scan report for 100.80.240.2
Host is up (0.00s latency).
All 1000 scanned ports on 100.80.240.2 are in ignored states.
Not shown: 1000 filtered tcp ports (net-unreach)
Nmap scan report for 100.80.243.97
Host is up (0.00s latency).
All 1000 scanned ports on 100.80.243.97 are in ignored states.
Not shown: 1000 filtered tcp ports (net-unreach)
Nmap scan report for 100.80.244.4
Host is up (0.0000010s latency).
All 1000 scanned ports on 100.80.244.4 are in ignored states.
Not shown: 1000 filtered tcp ports (net-unreach)
Nmap scan report for 100.80.245.65
Host is up (0.0000010s latency).
All 1000 scanned ports on 100.80.245.65 are in ignored states.
Not shown: 1000 filtered tcp ports (net-unreach)
Nmap scan report for 100.80.246.39
Host is up (0.0000010s latency).
All 1000 scanned ports on 100.80.246.39 are in ignored states.
Not shown: 1000 filtered tcp ports (net-unreach)
Nmap done: 4096 IP addresses (6 hosts up) scanned in 31.99 seconds
Along with the AP blacklisting your mac address for roughly 10 minutes.
