Re: ping options

Hello Don,

Am 04.03.2026 um 04:46 schrieb Don Brown via MIDRANGE-L <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

I had a request to run a ping on the IBMi and specify the -f option to stop fragmentation.

As others pointed out, -f is not for "don't fragment", but often for "flood": Hammer out pings as quickly as possible. The requestor gave you misleading information.

The green screen option does not support specifying this option.

Did you prompt (F4) the command? I haven't seen an option to set the DF (Don't Fragment) bit in requests.

Hopefully I am just not looking hard enough ?

I guess there is simply no such option.

I assume this is a try to debug MTU related issues?

Depending on the receiver side's abilities, fragmented ICMP packets can be spotted with a packet sniffer, such as Wireshark. Also, ping is "symmetric". If the other side is able to send pings with the DF bit set, IBM i should send back the payload (and flags) as received. I haven't tested this, though.

:wq! PoC