Linux Usage: ping? Not enough, we have a more powerful tool - fping

fping - send ICMP ECHO_REQUEST packets to network hosts

fping is a program like ping which uses the Internet Control Message Protocol
(ICMP) echo request to determine if a target host is responding. fping differs
from ping in that you can specify any number of targets on the command line, or
specify a file containing the lists of targets to ping. Instead of sending to one
target until it times out or replies, fping will send out a ping packet and move
on to the next target in a round-robin fashion.

In the default mode, if a target replies, it is noted and removed from the list of
targets to check; if a target does not respond within a certain time limit and/or
retry limit it is designated as unreachable. fping also supports sending a speci‐
fied number of pings to a target, or looping indefinitely (as in ping ).

Unlike ping, fping is meant to be used in scripts, so its output is designed to be
easy to parse.

Installaton:

$ sudo apt-get install fping

Usage:

$ fping [options] hosts

Useful Options：

• -a Show systems that are alive.
• -A Show systems that are alive
• -c Number of request packets to send to each target. In this mode, a line is displayed for each received response (this can suppressed with -q or -Q)
• -C Similar to -c, but the per-target statistics are displayed in a format designed for automated response-time statistics gathering
• -d Use DNS to lookup address of return ping packet
• -f Read list of targets from a file. This option can only be used by the root user. Regular users should pipe in the file via stdin: $ fping < targets_file
• -q Quiet. Don't show per-target results, just set final exit status
• -rn Retry limit (default 3)
• -Tn Select timeout in seconds (default 10)
• -u Show targets that are unreachable

Exit Code (DIAGNOSTICS):

• 0 if all the hosts are reachable
• 1 if some hosts were unreachable
• 2 if any IP addresses were not found
• 3 for invalid command line arguments
• 4 for a system call failure.

Conclusion:

fping send ping request continuously which is simpler and faster than ping that send to destination one request by one request.