In certain environments, for example, in a virtual machine, the network link status is not correctly returned when the network cable is disconnected. You can receive notification about public network status in these environments by setting the Ping_Targets parameter during the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation. You should use this parameter for addresses outside the cluster, like a switch or router.

The ping utility contacts the comma-separated list of host names or IP addresses Host1/IP1,Host2/IP2 to determine whether the public network is available. If none of the hosts respond, then the network is considered to be offline.