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Asked: 2024-09-24T13:31:31+05:30 In:

How can I modify the ping command to show both the time and date for each ping response in Ubuntu?

I’m trying to spice up my ping command game on Ubuntu, and I was hoping someone out there might have some clever ideas. So, here’s the deal: I want to see not only the response times when I ping a server but also the exact date and time of each response. Like, is there a way to modify the standard ping output so I can get that info in real-time?

I’ve been digging around the internet, and while I’ve found some neat tricks, none of them seem to give me the full picture. I want my terminal to tell me things like “Pinging google.com at [date here] [time here] – Reply from 172.x.x.x: bytes=32 time=20ms” or something along those lines. I mean, how cool would that be?! It would really make monitoring latency and understanding network issues way more fun.

I’ve tried a few basic options like just running `ping` normally, and even experimenting with `ping -c 5 google.com`, but I need more detail. Using the default settings shows me response times, but they’re mostly just raw numbers without the context of when they happened. And trust me, I totally get that the standard ping command isn’t designed for this sort of thing, but I can’t help but think there’s a way to script or modify it to include this additional info.

If you’re curious, I’m primarily looking to use this for a personal project where I need to keep track of connectivity to a specific server over time. It’s mostly for my own geeky satisfaction, but it would also help me analyze network performance trends.

Has anyone out there tackled this challenge before? I’d appreciate any tips or scripts that could help me achieve this. If there’s a command-line wizardry that you’re using or a simple one-liner that achieves this, I’m all ears! Let’s see if we can figure this out together. Thanks in advance for your help!

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    2 Answers



    1. Enhancing Ping Command Output on Ubuntu

      To achieve your goal of displaying the date and time alongside the ping response times, you can use a simple Bash script. The standard ping command doesn’t provide timestamps by default, but you can modify its output using a loop in a script. Here’s a one-liner command you can try in your terminal:

      while true; do echo -n "Pinging google.com at $(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S') - "; ping -c 1 google.com | grep 'bytes from'; sleep 1; done

      This command continuously pings google.com every second (you can adjust the sleep duration if you’d like a different interval). The date command is used to get the current date and time, and the output is formatted to your liking. The grep command filters the output to show only the relevant lines containing the response details. This way, you will get output that looks something like: Pinging google.com at 2023-10-14 15:30:45 – 64 bytes from 172.x.x.x: icmp_seq=1 ttl=117 time=20.2 ms, giving you both the response time and the exact moment each ping was made.




    2. Ping Command with Date and Time

      Spicing Up Your Ping Command

      If you’re looking to get the exact date and time with your `ping` output, why not use a little script to do just that? Here’s a simple Bash one-liner that can get you started:

      while ping -c 1 google.com; do echo "$(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S') - PING to google.com"; sleep 1; done

      In this command:

      • ping -c 1 google.com: Sends one ping to google.com.
      • $(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'): Prints the current date and time.
      • sleep 1: Waits for 1 second before the next ping, giving you time to see each result.

      This will give you a nice output that shows the current time before each ping. You might need to tweak it a little based on your preferences (like adding more info from the ping output), but this should be a good starting point!

      Another fun trick is to redirect the output to a file so you can track it over time:

      while ping -c 1 google.com; do echo "$(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S') - PING to google.com - $(ping -c 1 google.com | grep 'bytes from')"; sleep 1; done > ping_log.txt

      This will create a file called ping_log.txt and log the output there. You can check it anytime!

      Hope this helps you geek out over your network monitoring project!


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