Mysql-setup on a server that doesn't respond to ping

I’m trying to install wordpress on a cloud hosted ubuntu VPS that doesn’t respond to ping.

I have installed wordpress and mysql-server via Ubuntu apt-get and linked the /var/www to the wordpress install.

The next step is to create the database for the site and the instructions that I find online all say to use the example bash script:

eg:
sudo bash /usr/share/doc/wordpress/examples/setup-mysql -n wordpress_preciseserver blog.preciseserver.com

However, the server doesn’t respond to ping/icmp requests. Even though all the configuration files that I can see say that it should be.

So when I try to run the script the first thing I see is that it’s trying to ping the url I’ve provided:

webadmin@i-3712-32850-VM:/$ sudo bash /usr/share/doc/wordpress/examples/setup-mysql -n wordpress_m.elgrace.com m.elgrace.com
PING m.elgrace.com (14.63.224.173) 56(84) bytes of data.

--- m.elgrace.com ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 0ms

As you can see, it resolves the URL into the correct IP address for the server, but as it doesn’t respond to ping, it just dumps me back at the bash prompt.

Can anyone offer any suggestions? The hosting company is in Korea (where I’m currently located and helping friends set up this site) and I’m not sure if I can communicate with them to check if they can enable ICMP traffic to the server.

Is there a way to edit the script or debug it to skip the PING test?

Are there instructions somewhere for creating the mysql database manually?

Any help is appreciated.