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2.5. ICMP
The Internet Control Messaging Protocol (ICMP) is an extension to the Internet Protocol (IP) as defined in the Request For Comments (RFC) #792 and supports network packets containing control, error, and informational messages. ICMP is used by such network applications as the ping utility, which can determine the availability of a network host or device. Examples of some error messages returned by ICMP which are useful to both network hosts and devices such as routers, include Destination Unreachable and Time Exceeded.