# How to ping Docker container from another container by name?

The feather of accessing or pinging containers from other containers using their
name rather than their IP address comes out of the box with docker networks.

For this, you will need two (or more) containers. It is very important to
explicitly specify their name using the `--name` flag. For example:

```bash
docker run -d --name container1  -p 8001:80 eboraas/apache-php
docker run -d --name container2  -p 8001:80 eboraas/apache-php
```

Then, you need to create a network:

```bash
docker network create mynetwork
```

Lastly, connect the containers to the newly created network:

```bash
docker network connect mynetwork container1
docker network connect mynetwork container2
```

Now the setup is complete, you can ping from one container in the network to
another:

```bash
docker exec -ti container1 ping container2
```

If you are new to Docker, feel free to start with our [Getting started logging guide](https://betterstack.com/community/guides/logging/how-to-start-logging-with-docker/).

To learn more about ping monitoring go to our [intro guide](https://betterstack.com/community/guides/monitoring/what-is-ping-monitoring/) or check out the list of [best tools](https://betterstack.com/community/comparisons/ping-monitoring-tools/) to use.

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