ping - ‘ping’ is a universal utility that allows you to send very small ICMP
packets to any host on a network. When the ICMP(ping)packet arrives
at it’s destination, the host will send back a response ICMP(pong)
packet to the host that made the query, unless specifically denied via
a hardware or software filtering implementation. This basically
allows simple connection troubleshooting indicating whether a host can
pass basic TCP/IP traffic or not.

To ping a host:

ping <hostaddress>

examples:

ping 192.168.0.1
ping theplanet.com

To ping a host address until interrupted manually (non-terminating ping):

ping -t <hostaddress>

examples:

ping -t 192.168.0.1
ping -t theplanet.com

Pressing the combination ‘CTRL + C’ should force the non-terminating ping to exit.

On unix systems, the ping command will automatically ping
continuously, without needing the -t command - just as in Windows, you
will have to CTRL-C to halt the ping.

sample output from the ping command:

C:WINDOWSsystem32>ping 192.168.1.1

Pinging 192.168.1.1 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=255
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=255
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=255
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=255

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms