GPing (Graphical Ping): A cool CLI utility for SysAdmins

In our previous post, we talked about the graphic application call Terminator, which is a robust Terminal ideal for Advanced users, like many others existing and addressed here. Therefore, to give continuity to this field of applications or advanced tools for an ideal use of IT professionals , the SysAdmins and DevOps about GNU/Linux, we will talk about "GPing".

Gping or Graphical Ping is a useful tool, ideal for use in the server administration area, since it can generate a detailed visual graph when generating a ping to more than one host (computer) simultaneously during a predefined period.

Terminator: A useful terminal emulator for advanced users

And, before starting reading this post about this CLI utility called "GPing", which offers a graphic ping for an advanced use of the ping command, we will leave some links to previous related posts:

Terminator: A useful terminal emulator for advanced users

Bashtop and Spdtest: 2 Interesting Terminal Apps for GNU / Linux

GPing: A graphical ping for advanced use of the Ping command

What is GPing?

As stated in his official website at GitHub, Gping is a cross-platform CLI utility for advanced use of the Ping command. Therefore, it offers the following characteristics:

Graph ping time for multiple hosts.
Graph command execution time using the –cmd flag.
The use of custom colors for potential scanned hosts.
Installable on Windows, macOS and Linux.

Installation

At present, GPing goes for the current stable version numerous 1.5.0 dated 05/12/2022. And for its installation on a GNU/Linux distro based on Debian/Ubuntu, the procedure would be the following:

echo "deb http://packages.azlux.fr/debian/ buster main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/azlux.list
wget -qO - https://azlux.fr/repo.gpg.key | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt update
sudo apt install gping

As can be seen below:

Examples of use

Next, we will show what the GPing execution For a better understanding of the cross-platform CLI utility:

command order: gping blog.desdelinux.net

Command output

command order: gping blog.desdelinux.net ubunlog.com linuxadictos.com projectictac.com

Command output

command order: gping --cmd "curl google.com"

command order: gping --help

So far, it has been all in relation to GPing. While, for those who do not want to use something so different or graphic, there is always the alternative of FPing command, which is not graphic, but does extend the use of the traditional ping command.

“Fping is a program for sending ICMP echo probes to network hosts, similar to ping, but with much better performance when pinging multiple hosts. fping has a long history: Roland Schemers published a first version in 1992 and it has established itself as a standard tool ever since. FPing on GitHub

For example, the FPing command It is useful for running multiple pings to a range (segment) of IP addresses. For this, the following commands can be used:

fping -s -g 192.168.0.100 192.168.0.130

fping -r -r 192.168.0.0/24

And of course, as usual, we can send (store) your output to a text file if necessary, for further review, especially in case of inserting the command command in a script file. For example:

fping -r -r 192.168.0.0/24 > fping.txt

Summary

In short, and as we can always see in many of our publications, in the field of Linux-based Operating SystemsThere is a huge and growing number of graphical applications (GUI) y Terminal applications (CLI), both for common users, as well as for advanced or professional users. And a good example of them is "GPing". Which can be really useful for those IT professionalsAs an SysAdmins or DevOps, or other similar ones. Therefore, if you are one of them and you still do not know it, we advise you to try it.

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