ding

ding is a command-line utility for measuring DNS lookup latency against a specific DNS server, similar in spirit to ping.

Instead of sending ICMP packets, ding repeatedly performs DNS lookups using the DNS server provided as an argument and reports response times, packet loss, and round-trip-time statistics.

Installation

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/splitnines/ding.git
cd ding

Build ding from source:

make

This creates the executable at:

build/ding

You can run it directly:

./build/ding 1.1.1.1

To install it system-wide:

sudo make install

By default, this installs ding to /usr/local/bin.

To install it somewhere else, override PREFIX:

make install PREFIX="$HOME/.local"

Make sure the install location is in your PATH:

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

To remove build artifacts:

make clean

Usage

ding <dns server> [options]

Options:

-n, --name <hostname>        host name to look up (default: google.com)
-c, --count <count>          stop after <count> replies
-t, --timeout <timeout>      time, in seconds, to wait for a response
-i, --interval <interval>    time, in seconds, between requests
-q, --quiet                  quiet output
-s, --save [path/to/file]    save summary to file
-h, --help                   print help and exit
-V, --version                print version and exit

Examples

Query Cloudflare DNS five times:

ding 1.1.1.1 -c5

Look up a custom hostname using Google DNS:

ding 8.8.8.8 -n example.com

Use a custom interval and timeout:

ding 1.1.1.1 -i0.025 -t0.025

Run five queries and save the summary to a file:

ding 8.8.8.8 -c5 -s results.csv

Example output

DNS server: 1.1.1.1 (one.one.one.one) DNS lookup: google.com
response from 1.1.1.1: name=google.com sequence=1 time=14.680 ms
response from 1.1.1.1: name=google.com sequence=2 time=15.568 ms
response from 1.1.1.1: name=google.com sequence=3 time=14.845 ms
response from 1.1.1.1: name=google.com sequence=4 time=16.401 ms
response from 1.1.1.1: name=google.com sequence=5 time=15.565 ms

--- 1.1.1.1 ding statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0.00% packet loss, time 77ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev 14.680/15.412/16.401/0.614 ms

Output fields

• sequence: the request number
• time: DNS lookup response time in milliseconds
• packet loss: percentage of DNS requests that did not receive a response
• rtt min/avg/max/mdev: minimum, average, maximum, and mean deviation of response times

OS support

ding has currently only been built and tested on Linux.

Other Unix-like systems may work, but they are not officially supported yet. Windows is not currently supported.