Mac OS X v10.5, v10.6: Ping may lose some packets due to configuration
Summary
In this advanced article, learn what you can do if the Terminal command ping -f displays a packet loss when pinging a computer that is running Mac OS X v10.5.6, 10.5.7, 10.5.8, or Mac OS X v10.6, or later.
Products Affected
Mac OS X Server, Mac OS X 10.6.1, Mac OS X 10.6, Mac OS X 10.5.7, Mac OS X 10.5.6, Mac OS X 10.5.8
This behavior is expected due to a rate limiter of 250 that is set for ICMP.
To temporarily disable this limiter, enter the following Terminal command on the target Mac:
sudo sysctl -w net.inet.icmp.icmplim=0
This setting will persist until the next restart of the target Mac, then it will be reset to the default value of 250.
Additional Information
If you want to make this change permanent, open the sysctl.conf file located in /etc/ and add the following line:
net.inet.icmp.icmplim=0
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