this is what ping gives when run with the options you gave me: PING 10.10.10.11 (10.10.10.11) 56(84) bytes of data. --- 10.10.10.11 ping statistics --- 60000 packets transmitted, 60000 received, 0% packet loss, time 59999ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.003/0.003/0.057/0.001 ms ping with just the ip adress geebee@debian:~$ ping 10.10.10.11 PING 10.10.10.11 (10.10.10.11) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from 10.10.10.11: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.017 ms 64 bytes from 10.10.10.11: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.031 ms 64 bytes from 10.10.10.11: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.029 ms 64 bytes from 10.10.10.11: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=0.013 ms 64 bytes from 10.10.10.11: icmp_seq=5 ttl=64 time=0.012 ms 64 bytes from 10.10.10.11: icmp_seq=6 ttl=64 time=0.029 ms 64 bytes from 10.10.10.11: icmp_seq=7 ttl=64 time=0.029 ms 64 bytes from 10.10.10.11: icmp_seq=8 ttl=64 time=0.021 ms 64 bytes from 10.10.10.11: icmp_seq=9 ttl=64 time=0.045 ms 64 bytes from 10.10.10.11: icmp_seq=10 ttl=64 time=0.030 ms 64 bytes from 10.10.10.11: icmp_seq=11 ttl=64 time=0.013 ms 64 bytes from 10.10.10.11: icmp_seq=12 ttl=64 time=0.029 ms 64 bytes from 10.10.10.11: icmp_seq=13 ttl=64 time=0.029 ms 64 bytes from 10.10.10.11: icmp_seq=14 ttl=64 time=0.013 ms 64 bytes from 10.10.10.11: icmp_seq=15 ttl=64 time=0.013 ms 64 bytes from 10.10.10.11: icmp_seq=16 ttl=64 time=0.030 ms 64 bytes from 10.10.10.11: icmp_seq=17 ttl=64 time=0.019 ms ^X^C --- 10.10.10.11 ping statistics --- 17 packets transmitted, 17 received, 0% packet loss, time 16386ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.012/0.023/0.045/0.009 ms geebee@debian:~$