Pinging Broadcast IP address
 

When I ping a broadcast IP address, I don't get an icmp reply packets from all the IP address in the subnet. But rather I would only get an icmp reply packet from the first IP address in the subnet. Why is that so ?

Note: All the IP addresses of this subnet belongs to the same server & I am pinging from this server itself.

http://linux.die.net/man/8/ping

I recommend fping for that.
http://www.fping.com/
http://fping.sourceforge.net/man/

Thanks for the reply teckk. Well, fping can be used to send ICMP echo request to a large number of hosts simultaneously. But still my question is left unanswered :( Why is that I only receive reply from the 1st IP address in the subnet & not from other IP addresses in the subnet ?

quick read

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smurf_attack

Hi malaprop,

Thanks for the link. So most hosts won't respond to ping sent to broadcast IP address. As a said before, is there any special reason that only the first IP in the subnet responds to the ping ?

Dumb question, is the first IP a x.x.x.1 address?

The subnet which I am talking about is x.x.x.40/29 ; the first IP address is x.x.x.41 ; the broadcast IP is x.x.x.47
Hope this will give u an idea....

Okay, so what's the gateway for that subnet?

I only ask because when I ping broadcast on all my subnets, it's always my router that answers back.