trip

Basic usage with default parameters

$ sudo trip [example.com]

$ trip [example.com] --unprivileged

$ sudo trip [example.com] --ipv6

$ sudo trip [example.com] --protocol [udp]

$ sudo trip [example.com] --protocol [tcp] --target-port [443]

$ sudo trip [example.com] --protocol [udp] --source-port [5000]

trip [options] host

host
    The destination hostname or IP address to measure reachability or round-trip time to.

-c count
    Specifies the number of echo requests (trips) to send. (Highly inferred)

-t timeout
    Sets the timeout in seconds for each trip. (Highly inferred)

-q
    Enables quiet mode, printing only the summary results. (Highly inferred)

-v
    Enables verbose mode, providing more detailed output. (Highly inferred)

The trip command is an extremely rare and largely non-standard Linux utility, believed to have been a very simple network diagnostic tool. Its primary function was likely to measure the round-trip time to a specified host, conceptually similar to a highly simplified ping command, or to perform a basic hop-by-hop trace without the detailed reporting of traceroute.

Due to its limited functionality and profound lack of widespread adoption, trip is not commonly found in modern Linux distributions or their official documentation. It may have been part of specific, older iputils packages, custom builds, or highly niche embedded systems. Users overwhelmingly rely on standard, well-documented tools like ping for network reachability and round-trip time, and traceroute or mtr for path analysis, as trip offers no advantages over them and lacks any form of support or common presence.

The trip command is not a standard utility found in most modern Linux distributions. Information regarding its exact syntax, options, and historical development is extremely scarce and largely undocumented. The parameters listed above are highly inferred based on common functionalities of simple network tools and should not be relied upon without verifying the specific version of trip being used (if it exists). If encountered, it is likely part of a custom build, an embedded system, or a very old and unmaintained software package. Users should always rely on standard tools like ping, traceroute, or mtr for network diagnostics, as trip lacks documentation, support, and widespread functionality.

The trip command is generally not included in standard iputils packages or typical installations of most modern Linux distributions (e.g., Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS, RHEL). Attempting to execute trip on a default system will almost certainly result in a 'command not found' error.

While its precise original intent is unclear due to lack of documentation, trip likely aimed to provide basic network reachability or round-trip time measurement. For these purposes, ping is the universally accepted, far more feature-rich, and standardized tool. For detailed network path tracing and diagnostics, traceroute or mtr are the standard utilities.

The exact history of the trip command is largely undocumented and obscure. It is believed to have been a minor utility, possibly part of very early versions or specific forks of the iputils package, intended for basic network reachability testing or simplified path tracing. Due to its limited feature set and the prevalence of more robust and standardized tools like ping and traceroute, trip never gained widespread adoption and has since fallen out of common use, if it was ever widely distributed as a standalone, mainstream command.

ping(8), traceroute(8), mtr(8), ip(8)