Ping Reboot (Cell ICMP Check)

ICMP Check (Ping Reboot)

ICMP Check (also know as Ping Reboot) is a very useful service which is recommended in 4G and 5G M2M/IoT remote router installations in unmanned locations. Ping Reboot/ICMP Check is a function in M2M 4G and 5G routers that can be set to restart the modem or the router itself . The ping reboot setting does this automatically when it detects a disconnection from the mobile network, meaning you don’t have to send an engineer to site to manually restart the router if the mobile network is showing down.

The mobile networks will disconnect devices at certain times, for example when capacity has been reached on a mast, most often a mobile 4G/5G device will reconnect with no issue. However, there are occasions where a device will fail to reconnect to the local cell tower and the device will need to be rebooted to reconnect. If the router is in a remote location, which most IoT router installations are, this will require an engineer to visit the site. The ICMP check will detect a disconnection from the internet when it fails to ping a predefinite public IP address, most commonly Googles public DNS server at 8.8.8.8. – the router will then auto-reboot or auto-reboot the modem to establish an internet connection.

ICMP check configures the router to ping a specific IP address or hostname at a set interval, if the IP address/hostname is unreachable for a set period, the router will reboot either the whole device or just the module (modem). The IP address is usually set to a server which is guaranteed to be always online – like Google’s DNS servers at 8.8.8.8.

We recommend using the pre-filled settings in Proroute 4G and 5G routers, just tick enable and tick reconnect and save and apply to use this function.

ICMP Check (Ping reboot) is now enabled.

Ping Reboot ICMP Check Proroute — Ping Reboot / ICMP Check

Enable: Enable ICMP check feature

Host1 to ping / Host2 to ping: The domain name or IP address for checking the network connection.

Ping timeout: After a ping packet is sent, if the response packet is not received before timeout, then this ping has failed.

Max retries: Denoted the number of retries which are attempted before the selected ‘action when failed’ field is triggered. If the ping is returned and therefore doesn’t fail, the counter will be reset to 0.

Interval between ping: The time between two pings in minutes.

Reconnect: Instruct the router to reconnect.

Action when failed: the options are “Restart module” and “Restart router”. “Restart module” will restart the radio module (modem), and “Restart router” will restart the whole system including radio module (modem).

You can find out more information on M2M router features on the Proroute knowledge base.