Re: bad default in ping

Simon Josefsson via Bug reports for the GNU Internet utilities <[email protected]> Mon, 12 May 2025 09:13:14 +0200

Newsgroups	gmane.comp.gnu.inetutils.bugs
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

Collin Funk <[email protected]> writes:

> "Alfred M. Szmidt" <[email protected]> writes:
>
>> ping is for IPv4, ping5 is for IPv6.  There is nothing "legacy" about
>> IPv4.  Use the right command for the right task.
>
> I generally agree. Having both a ping and ping6 commands seems fairly
> common.
>
> I wouldn't mind having 'ping' support both IPv4 and IPv6 with arguments
> to chose though. I think that was even but in the TODO file long ago.
> But I am in no rush to do so.

Yes, I think the current user interface is mostly a consequence of the
ping vs ping6 tools having low code re-use between them.  I think it
should be one tool and have parameter for -4 and -6 just like many other
ping implementations.  I disagree with Anna and think that IPv4 should
still be the default, although I think we should be open to revisit this
in a few years if IPv4 availability lowers (which I'm not seeing any
signs of).  Even if we merge the IPv6 functionality into 'ping', I still
think we should install a 'ping6' symlink because that interface is
worth supporting too (for Anna's use-case, for example).

/Simon

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