odd ping behavior; host IP needs to be in quotes

[Doug Corey_1]

I am running HP-UX 11.11 using this 'ping' command:
24576 Nov 14 2000 /usr/sbin/ping

I have several other servers with the exact same configuration (patch level, etc.) that do not have this issue.

I can ping by hostname:
# ping localhost
PING localhost: 64 byte packets
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=0. time=0. ms

I cannot ping by ip address. I get 100% packet loss.

BUT I found that if i put the IP address in quotes then I can ping by ip address.

Anyone seen this?

This server is on a DMZ network. But I cannot see what that would have to do with it as I am not trying to route anything anywhere anyway, just ping myself. Also there are other servers on the DMZ whose network functions operate normally.

[John Dvorchak]

Is your /usr/sbin/ping the same type and size as on the other system where it works?

[Doug Corey_1]

Yes it is

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Possible causes:

A. The ping command you are running is actually a wrapper and thus not the command you expect.

II. Your shell's IFS (Internal Field Separotor) has been 'improved' to include '.'.

echo ${IFS} | od -c
IFS should be space, tab, and LF by default.

[Kellogg Unix Team]

Do you have any alias setup for ping?
what happens if you give full path for ping, viz.
/usr/sbin/ping

[Doug Corey_1]

Here is the output from the suggested IFS echo:
# echo ${IFS} | od -c
0000000 \n
0000001

I was doing the ping testing using the full path to the command so there are no aliases. It could be a wraper but then wouldn't that file size be a little bit dirrent?

It just dawned on me that traceroute did the same thing. I needed quotes to do a traceroute too! odd

[Richard Steven]

Could you try scripting the ping and running it. This way you can discount any problems with your shell settings eg TERM.