What is a ping or pinging?

Ping is a fundamental program that allows a computer to send a request to another computer somewhere else on the network or on the Internet in order to determine if the computer exists and is responding. A ping sends a packet of data to a specific address and waits for an appropriately named "pong" response. The ping name actually was not derived from table tennis, but was devised from the sound that submarine sonar makes when it bounces off physical objects.