Ping!

In both Linux and the BSD variants, the default behavior of the ICMP echo-based ping command is to enter an infinite loop, sending a probe once per second.  This results in output something like:

ubuntu:~> ping 8.8.8.8

PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8) 56(84) bytes of data.

64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_req=1 ttl=52 time=35.9 ms

64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_req=2 ttl=52 time=37.3 ms

64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_req=3 ttl=52 time=36.2 ms

64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_req=4 ttl=52 time=37.0 ms

64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_req=5 ttl=52 time=36.4 ms

^C

--- 8.8.8.8 ping statistics ---

5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4004ms

rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 35.936/36.594/37.308/0.548 ms

In Solaris, on the other hand, the default output of the same command has always been to print '<machine> is alive', or 'no answer from <machine>' after a timeout.  Per the Solaris ping manual page, the Linux/BSD behavior is known as statistics mode, and has to be enabled by running ping with the -s flag.

Now, it seems that an easter egg has been added to the Solaris 11/Express ping program at build 33, remaining in later builds.  If you set the shell environment variable MACHINE_THAT_GOES_PING (I'm not joking!) to any non-null value, then the default ping behavior changes to statistics mode.  I've confirmed this as being the case on my b127 Solaris Express host.

Thanks to John Beck for the tip!