How to force ping to use IP4 instead of IP6

I was working with a junior admin the other day and I helped him with command that I thought most people knew about. You can tell ping to use IPv4 or IPv6 by typing in:

-4 or –6 after the ping command but BEFORE the target name.

Here’s an example

As you can see the computers communicated via IPv6. Let’s change the command slightly to get back the IPv4 address.

As you can see by using the –4 switch we can force ping to communicate via IPv4. Hope this helps!