From: grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se   
      
   On Sat, 10 May 2008 13:14:56 +0200, Martijn Lievaart    
   wrote:   
   > On Fri, 09 May 2008 23:35:45 -0400, Digital Mercenary For Honor wrote:   
   >   
   >> On 2008-05-07 05:43:00 -0400, Martijn Lievaart    
   >> said:   
   >>   
   >>> - Many OSses give ping a low priority   
   >>   
   >> Martin, thanks so much for bringing this up - this is my favorite grind   
   >   
   > That's Martijn, it's a Dutch name.   
   >   
   >> when people bring up ICMP-based ping measurements. I'll add $0.02 here   
   >> in that all of my practical experience in large network enterprises has   
   >> shown that ICMP does get a low priority, plurally across most OS's, even   
   >> RTOS's like Cisco IOS, etc., etc. and can't be relied on for accurate   
   >> measurement.   
   >   
   > While it's not what the OP asked, I'll repeat it here yet again, so   
   > posterity will know for once and for all.   
   >   
   > Especially Ciscos (and other network gear?) give pings a very low   
   > priority, and I've seen the same on Windows, but less on Unixy machines.   
      
   I'll take your word for it, but why?   
      
   In a sense, that means deliberately crippling a diagnostic tool. You   
   could argue that ICMP ECHOs from host A should be treated exactly like   
   TCP segments from host A, because the ECHOs only exist because a user   
   on host A is trying to make those TCP segments more useful by   
   debugging some problem.   
      
   (But I admit that I am not very familiar with all the abuse scenarios   
   a real router must take into account.)   
      
   /Jorgen   
      
   --   
     // Jorgen Grahn           R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)