📝 Note: Network monitoring is available as an add-on. Learn more about our add-ons here.

The Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) is used by network devices to diagnose network communication issues. ICMP is mainly used to determine whether or not data is reaching its intended destination in a timely manner.

The Ping command in ICMP is a troubleshooting tool used to manually test for connectivity between network devices, and also to test for network delay and packet loss. The ping command sends an ICMP echo request to a device on the network, and the device immediately responds with an ICMP echo reply.

With ICMP Ping, SuperOps fetches the following data for any network device:

Round-Trip Time (RTT): The time taken between sending a ping request and receiving a reply. High RTT indicates high latency. It is measured in milliseconds.

Packet Loss: When a ping request does not receive a reply, the ping packet or the reply packet may have been lost. Packet Loss is the percentage of ping packets that get lost in a network when a ping request is made. High Packet Loss indicates a poor network connection.

Historical Ping Range: Displays the ping range in a 24 hour interval, with the minimum and maximum ping values.

Availability Status: Round-Trip Time and Packet Loss data plotted in a graph, over a specified time interval. You can access this monitor directly from the asset summary tab by clicking on the ping icon under Historical Ping Range.

Note: All troubleshooting features will be available to use only if your SuperOps agent is on the latest version. We roll-out agent updates in a staggered manner over the course of a few days to ensure stability and to avoid issues. If you don't see these options in your SuperOps account, it means that you are not on the latest agent version yet, and that you will soon be upgraded. If you would like to use these features immediately, please reach out to us and we will enable it for you.

If you experience slowness in a network device such as a router, you can diagnose the issue with Ping now and find out if there's latency on your network. Hitting Ping now will send 5 packets to the destination device, and report back on the RTT and Packet Loss data.

Once the ping request is completed, you will see the result as shown below. The graph depicts the ping value (in milliseconds) on the y-axis and the packet sequence in the x-axis.

The range depiction is as follows:

Ping:

0-120 ms: Good (green)

120-240 ms: Okay (yellow)

240-400 ms: Bad (red)

Packet Loss:

0-30%: Good (green)

30-60%: Okay (yellow)

60-100%: Bad (red)

For network devices, you can set up alerts to monitor Ping, RTT, and Packet Loss. To set up an alert,

1. Go to Settings > Policy Management > Select the network policy of your choice.

2. Go to Alert Management and click +Policy.

3. In the Condition dropdown, select Ping, Packet Loss Percentage, or Response Time based on what you metric want to monitor.

4. Specify the duration for which this condition should be met before your alert is triggered. For example, if you want to be alerted by a device that has been offline for 10 minutes, you can set the Duration to 10 minutes and the condition to Ping Is OFFLINE.

Note: If you have purchased the network monitoring add-on but don't see the Terminal button in your SuperOps account, it means that you are not on the latest agent version yet, and that you will soon be upgraded. If you would like to use SSH immediately, please reach out to us and we will enable it for you.

SSH (Secure Shell) is a network protocol that lets you access and operate a network device securely through a remote connection.

For SSH-enabled devices, you can securely access the terminal right within SuperOps. In a click of a button, SuperOps pulls up the terminal window and logs you into the network device. Without leaving SuperOps, you can remotely access and modify/check a network device to troubleshoot issues.

How to troubleshoot an issue with SSH:

1. To access the SSH terminal for a device, you will have to define its SSH credentials. Go to Settings > Credential Definition. Select the protocol as SSH and enter your details. You could also do this by going to Assets > Probes > Credential.

2. Open the network device for which you want to access the terminal and click on the Terminal button at the right top. The SSH terminal will open as a new tab inside SuperOps.

3. With the SSH terminal opened, you can run commands to perform actions that will help you troubleshoot the issue with your network device. We have built a full-fledged terminal that you can access right within SuperOps, so you don't have to use a different platform to troubleshoot issues.