Ping is a useful tool for checking if a server is online and responsive to outside connections. With certain exceptions, a server will always "ping" when it is online and available.
To ping a VPS or other server, open Command Prompt on Windows, or Terminal on Mac OS X / Linux.
Enter the IP address of the remote server with the ping command:
ping 0.0.0.0
On Windows, you can append the command as follows to ping the server indefinitely:
ping -t 0.0.0.0
A successful ping will return information about the packet size, TTL, and round-trip transmission time, ending in a MS (millisecond) value. Unsuccessful (offline) pings will return as "Destination host unreachable", "Connection timed out", or something similar.
