How To: Use Terminal to Ping With Timestamp (For Network Troubleshooting)

On macOS, this is a useful Terminal command to ping a network device repeatedly at a set internal, and log the timestamp with the ping reply.

This technique is good to evaluate the availability of a network device over a period time, if for example you suspect that a device or server is dropping off the network randomly (or not responding) at certain times of day.

You can use the -i flag to set a longer interval in seconds, which makes the ping output log easier to look through over an extended period. By default, ping will run every second, which can make it rather tedious when looking back through your ping results to find any significant dropouts.

ping -i 10 8.8.8.8 | while read pong; do echo “$(date): $pong”; done

The above command will ping the IP address 8.8.8.8 (Google DNS) every 10 seconds (-i 10) and will timestamp the corresponding pongs.

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Date	Name	Comments
Mar 30th	Ed P	The Purple Computing team were very assertive and timely in their help when we needed it to meet a tight deadline. We couldn't have achieved what we wanted without their patience and support and forever appreciate what they do for our business.
Mar 29th	Garry H	Issue sorted very quickly and efficiently
Mar 28th	Sally T	I'm not sure what the problem was, but when I took my computer to somewhere with stronger internet it updated and sorted itself out
Mar 24th	Esther W	Jack was excellent!
Mar 23rd	Aimee M	Hi Dean was brilliant very patient and helpful. The problem is now resolved.
Mar 23rd	Lorna S	Fast, great!
Mar 23rd	Craig L	Good service as per usual.
Mar 22nd	Caroline W	Extremely quick response, friendly and helpful! Thanks so much!
Mar 21st	Mark H	Really timely response - around 5 minutes after request submitted. Solved just as quick - apparently an old bug that Lochie was aware of and had the fix for so back up & running in 5 minutes. Great support, thank you Purple
Mar 21st	Sally T	Really fast reassuring service - thank you

Date

Name

Comments

Mar 30th

Ed P

The Purple Computing team were very assertive and timely in their help when we needed it to meet a tight deadline. We couldn't have achieved what we wanted without their patience and support and forever appreciate what they do for our business.

Mar 29th

Garry H

Issue sorted very quickly and efficiently

Mar 28th

Sally T

I'm not sure what the problem was, but when I took my computer to somewhere with stronger internet it updated and sorted itself out

Mar 24th

Esther W

Jack was excellent!

Mar 23rd

Aimee M

Hi Dean was brilliant very patient and helpful. The problem is now resolved.

Mar 23rd

Lorna S

Fast, great!

Mar 23rd

Craig L

Good service as per usual.

Mar 22nd

Caroline W

Extremely quick response, friendly and helpful! Thanks so much!

Mar 21st

Mark H

Really timely response - around 5 minutes after request submitted. Solved just as quick - apparently an old bug that Lochie was aware of and had the fix for so back up & running in 5 minutes. Great support, thank you Purple

Mar 21st

Sally T

Really fast reassuring service - thank you