How to disable / enable ping response in Linux

Note: all the following steps will be performed in the terminal / command line.

1 Disable / enable persistent ping response (via sysctl)

1.1 Add the following line to “/etc/sysctl.conf” (to enable, change 1 to 0)

net.ipv4.icmp_echo_ignore_all = 1

We can use the following command to achieve this

sudo bash -c 'echo "net.ipv4.icmp_echo_ignore_all=1" >> /etc/sysctl.conf

1.2 Apply change

sudo sysctl -p

2 Temporarily disable / enable ping response (via sysctl)

2.1 Run the following command to temporarily disable ping response (to enable, change 1 to 0)

echo 1 >/proc/sys/net/ipv4/icmp_echo_ignore_all

2.2 Apply change

sudo sysctl -p

3 Temporarily disable ping response (through firewall / iptables)

3.1 Run the following command to block / discard ping traffic

iptables -A INPUT -p icmp --icmp-type 8 -s 0/0 -j DROP

Note. While iptables rules will be in effect after reboot on CentOS and RHEL, they will not be in effect after reboot on Debian / Ubuntu / Kali Linux, etc.

4 Temporarily enable ping response (through firewall / iptables)

4.1 Run the following command to enable / allow ping traffic

iptables -A INPUT -p icmp --icmp-type echo-request -j ACCEPT
iptables -A OUTPUT -p icmp --icmp-type echo-reply -j ACCEPT

Note. As in section 3, firewall / iptables rules will be in effect after reboot in CentOS and RHEL, they will not be in effect after reboot in Debian / Ubuntu / Kali Linux, etc.

Bonus

Another way to easily allow the ping response is to just temporarily disable iptables / firewall.

sudo systemctl stop iptables

or

sudo systemctl stop ufw