[php] How can I ping a server port with PHP?

I want a PHP script which allows you to ping an IP address and a port number (ip:port). I found a similar script but it works only for websites, not ip:port.

<?php

function ping($host, $port, $timeout) 
{ 
  $tB = microtime(true); 
  $fP = fSockOpen($host, $port, $errno, $errstr, $timeout); 
  if (!$fP) { return "down"; } 
  $tA = microtime(true); 
  return round((($tA - $tB) * 1000), 0)." ms"; 
}

//Echoing it will display the ping if the host is up, if not it'll say "down".
echo ping("www.google.com", 80, 10);

?>

I want this for a game server.

The idea is that I can type in the IP address and port number, and I get the ping response.

socket_create needs to be run as root on a UNIX system with;

$socket = socket_create(AF_UNIX, SOCK_STREAM, 0);

You can use exec function

 exec("ping ".$ip);

here an example

Try this :

echo exec('ping -n 1 -w 1 72.10.169.28');

If you want to send ICMP packets in php you can take a look at this Native-PHP ICMP ping implementation, but I didn't test it.

EDIT:

Maybe the site was hacked because it seems that the files got deleted, there is copy in archive.org but you can't download the tar ball file, there are no contact email only contact form, but this will not work at archive.org, we can only wait until the owner will notice that sit is down.

Test different ports:

$wait = 1; // wait Timeout In Seconds
$host = 'example.com';
$ports = [
    'http'  => 80,
    'https' => 443,
    'ftp'   => 21,
];

foreach ($ports as $key => $port) {
    $fp = @fsockopen($host, $port, $errCode, $errStr, $wait);
    echo "Ping $host:$port ($key) ==> ";
    if ($fp) {
        echo 'SUCCESS';
        fclose($fp);
    } else {
        echo "ERROR: $errCode - $errStr";
    }
    echo PHP_EOL;
}


// Ping example.com:80 (http) ==> SUCCESS
// Ping example.com:443 (https) ==> SUCCESS
// Ping example.com:21 (ftp) ==> ERROR: 110 - Connection timed out

In case the OP really wanted an ICMP-Ping, there are some proposals within the User Contributed Notes to socket_create() [link], which use raw sockets. Be aware that on UNIX like systems root access is required.

Update: note that the usec argument has no function on windows. Minimum timeout is 1 second.

In any case, this is the code of the top voted ping function:

function ping($host, $timeout = 1) {
    /* ICMP ping packet with a pre-calculated checksum */
    $package = "\x08\x00\x7d\x4b\x00\x00\x00\x00PingHost";
    $socket  = socket_create(AF_INET, SOCK_RAW, 1);
    socket_set_option($socket, SOL_SOCKET, SO_RCVTIMEO, array('sec' => $timeout, 'usec' => 0));
    socket_connect($socket, $host, null);
    $ts = microtime(true);
    socket_send($socket, $package, strLen($package), 0);
    if (socket_read($socket, 255)) {
        $result = microtime(true) - $ts;
    } else {
        $result = false;
    }
    socket_close($socket);
    return $result;
}

function ping($ip){
    $output = shell_exec("ping $ip");
    var_dump($output);
}
ping('127.0.0.1');

UPDATE: If you pass an hardcoded IP (like in this example and most of the real-case scenarios), this function can be enough.

But since some users seem to be very concerned about safety, please remind to never pass user generated inputs to the shell_exec function: If the IP comes from an untrusted source, at least check it with a filter before using it.

You don't need any exec or shell_exec hacks to do that, it is possible to do it in PHP. The book 'You want to do WHAT with PHP?' by Kevin Schroeder, show's how.

It uses sockets and the pack() function which lets you read and write binary protocols. What you need to do is to create an ICMP packet, which you can do by using the 'CCnnnA*' format to create your packet.