ntping/README					Jan 1993


Copyright (c) 1993, 1994, 1995 
	by Erik Schoenfelder and Juergen Schoenwaelder 
	TU Braunschweig, Germany,
	Institute for Operating Systems and Computer Networks


This is a ping/traceroute program for use with Tkined's Scotty interpreter.

Quick Install:
	Run ``./configure'' followed by ``make'' for compilation, and
	type ``make sinstall'' as root for installation.  
	If you are using ntping within the scotty distribution, the
	toplevel configure, will do this for you.  

This program works asynchron for the given hosts and, if no host is
specified, it reads from stdin. It can query pings, timestamps,
netmasks and traceroute-like hops.  Ntping is not a plug-in
replacement for ping, or traceroute, but works similar.

Ntping is still around version 0.9m.

I may note, that you loose, if your kernel ignores the time-to-live
parameter in raw-ip packets and sets the own default.  I would guess:
If your traceroute works, ntping should be able to traceroute too.  If
your system provides a IP_TTL option, ntping uses this to send a
udp-packet with ttl set accordingly; if not avail a raw-ip packet is
created and sent.


Use : ntping [<options>] [<hosts>] 
options are:
	-V              show version and exit.
	-b(ones)        run in `scotty' mode.
options which may be specified on stdin or the cmdline:
	-s(ize) <n>     set size of packets.
	-r(etries) <n>  set # of retries.
	-t(imeout) <n>  set timeout for an answer.
	-d(elay) <n>    set the send delay to <n> ms.
	-ttl <n>        trace a hop with time-to-live set to n.
	-trace <n>      same as -ttl, but the destination is returned
	                for the last hop, if it is a dotted number.
	-mask           send an icmp-mask request.
	-tstamp         send a icmp-timestamp request.


Available platforms:
	- SunOS 4.1.x
	- Linux 1.x and above.  
	- Hpux 9.0x	 thanks to matthieu@sys.mfg.canadair.ca,
			 iztoku@fer.uni-lj.si and the author of
			 traceroute for hp-ux - that was a great help.
	- 386BSD	 thanks to <karl@sugar.NeoSoft.COM> Karl Lehenbauer
	- DEC Alpha	 thanks to <mosedale@genome.stanford.edu> Dan
			 Mosedale and <grunwald@foobar.cs.colorado.edu> 
			 Dirk Grunwald
	- Mach 2.6	 (not very extensively tested on a Sun3)
	- AIX 3.2	 thanks to Heino Gaertner (heino@fm.ing.tu-bs.de)
	- Irix 4.0.5     thanks to Jan L. Peterson (jlp@hamblin.math.byu.edu)
	- SVR4 (Solaris 2.3)
			 thanks to John P. Rouillard (rouilj@cs.umb.edu)
	- NEC EWS4800/310PX UNIX_SV 4.2MP
			thanks to Seiji Tokunaga (toku@ksp.nis.nec.co.jp)

Please note: This software is distributed ``as-is''. 
	     There is no warranty at all.


INSTALLATION:

Run ``./configure'' (with an optional --prefix=<prefix path>).
Then run simply ``make''.

To install run ``make sinstall'' - you have to run install as root.

Before installing you may run a simple check with ``make check'':

>    % make check
>    echo '-size 120 localhost' | ./ntping -b
>    {localhost 2} 
>    echo '-size 60 -delay 30 -mask localhost' | ./ntping -b
>    {localhost 255.0.0.0} 
>    echo '-retries 2 -timeout 1 -ttl 1 localhost' | ./ntping -b
>    {127.0.0.1 2} 
>    echo '-size 100 -delay 10 -trace 1 localhost' | ./ntping -b
>    {127.0.0.1 2} 
>    echo '-tstamp localhost' | ./ntping -b
>    {localhost -1} 

The output may vary.

If you are running in trouble with the configure script, you may
cp Makefile.handmade to Makefile and edit it by hand.
Then follow with ``make'' and ``make install''.


NEWS:
	(*) Minor change to IP_HDRINCL: its no longer a fatal error.
	    ntping tries to continue anyway.

	(*) Mar 1995: Code cleanup done. Now the select() does the
	    timeouts and delays; this allows much better timings when
	    using delays. Static input/output buffers removed.
	    Running ntping with hosts on the cmd-line, give nicer
	    output (like ping or traceroute).

	(*) broken -retries did not accept 0 - fixed. 

	(*) AIX takes the IP_TTL option, but sends a ttl of 30; I guess 
	    AIX is wrong. But the old build-our-own-packet code works.

	(*) Added better support of DLPI interface (hp-ux/svr4) with
	    IP_TTL option (no ip-raw socket neccessary).
	    Added a hack to check about bad icmp tim-exceed /
	    port-unreach packets with ports byte-swapped.

	(*) September 1994: memory leak fixed.

	(*) July 1994: use of bzero/bcopy by mem-routines replaced.
	    This seems to help SVR4 and hopyfully won't hurt anyone
	    else.  -lsocket and -lnsl added to the configure script by
	    Juergen Schoenwaelder
	    
	(*) June 1994: HP-UX nukes sending RAW Pakets; special case
	    cloned from traceroute; old hp-ux nonsense removed.
	    a big thank you to iztoku@fer.uni-lj.si.

	(*) May 1994: Kick me - ntping -b returned the old answer
	    (sometimes garbled) for an empty input-line... ffff-fixed.

	(*) Apr 1994: Fix for SGI Irix 4.0.5 added; junk in the ip
	    packet to be sent for traces is not the real fun ;-)
	    thanks to Jan L. Peterson (jlp@hamblin.math.byu.edu)

	(*) Feb 1994: Linux 0.99.15 has fixed the icmp hdr offset bug.

	(*) Jan 1994: fix for AIX added; thanks to Heino Gaertner
	    <heino@fm.ing.tu-bs.de>

	(*) Jan 1994: configure script added by
	    <schoenw@ibr.cs.tu-bs.de> Juergen Schoenwaelder. 

	(*) Nov 1993: fix for DEC Alpha added
 	    (submitted by <mosedale@genome.stanford.edu> Dan Mosedale)

	(*) Oct 1993: fix for 386bsd added (submitted by
	    <karl@sugar.NeoSoft.COM> Karl Lehenbauer)

BUGS and TODO's:

	(*) The code may need cleanups (interactive / bones / cmdline
	    mode); better handling of ping/mask/tstamp/ttl jobs.

	(*) The pkt-size seems to be buggy (too samll / too large)
	    Sometimes size is the data-size, sometimes the
	    complete paket size.

	(*) The commandline interface should be more verbose and nicer
	    formatted (eg. like ping).

--
(schoenfr@ibr.cs.tu-bs.de) Erik Schoenfelder
(schoenw@ibr.cs.tu-bs.de) Juergen Schoenwaelder