Routing – When a ping is lost, what happens

ipv4pingrouting

Suppose that the message you are sending does not reach the destination, such as a ping. Is the content of that message protected? How is a retransmission accomplished?

Best Answer

IP protocol provides no guarantee that packets will arrive, arrive on time, or arrive in the proper order. The only thing IP can verify is that the packet header is intact (due to the header checksum). So if a ping is lost, it is...lost. It is up to the sending program to detect that no corresponding reply was received. If you want to guarantee delivery, you need to rely on layer 4 protocols, namely TCP.