Details about the rules to enable "sm_ping" through a firewall

Products

• VMware Smart Assurance
• Network Observability

Issue/Introduction

This article clarifies the details about the rules to enable "sm_ping" through a firewall

Environment

All Supported Smarts releases

Resolution

It is not required to open any ports for sm_ping to work, as it uses Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) packets.
ICMP is a protocol of its own, which unlike Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) or User Datagram Protocol (UDP), does not use "ports".
For sm_ping to work, icmp 'echo-request' (type 8) packets out and icmp 'echo-reply' (type 0) packets in need to be enabled.