Pinging servers in Python

Question

In Python  is there a way to ping a server through ICMP and return TRUE if the server responds  or FALSE if there is no response

User · Answer

One thing a lot of the answers miss is that (at least in Windows) the ping command returns 0 (indicating success) if it receives the reply "Destination host unreachable."

Here is my code that checks if b'TTL=' is in the response, since that is only present when the ping reached the host. Note: Most of this code is based on the other answers here.

import platform
import subprocess

def ping(ipAddr, timeout=100):
    '''
    Send a ping packet to the specified host, using the system ping command.
    Accepts ipAddr as string for the ping destination.
    Accepts timeout in ms for the ping timeout.
    Returns True if ping succeeds otherwise Returns False.
        Ping succeeds if it returns 0 and the output includes b'TTL='
    '''
    if platform.system().lower() == 'windows':
        numFlag = '-n'
    else:
        numFlag = '-c'
    completedPing = subprocess.run(['ping', numFlag, '1', '-w', str(timeout), ipAddr],
                                   stdout=subprocess.PIPE,    # Capture standard out
                                   stderr=subprocess.STDOUT)  # Capture standard error
    # print(completedPing.stdout)
    return (completedPing.returncode == 0) and (b'TTL=' in completedPing.stdout)

print(ping('google.com'))

Note: This captures the output instead of printing it, so if you want to see the output of ping, you'll need to print completedPing.stdout before returning.

User · Answer

I resolve this with   def ping self  host       res   False      ping param    -n 1  if system name   lower       windows  else  -c 1       resultado   os popen  ping     ping param         host  read        if  TTL   in resultado          res   True     return res    TTL  is the way to know if the ping is correctly  Saludos

User · Answer

My take borrowing from other answers  Attempt to simplify and minimize queries   import platform  os  def ping host       result   os popen     join   ping   ping param  host    read       return  TTL   in result  ping param    -n 1  if platform system   lower       windows  else  -c 1

User · Answer

This function works in any OS  Unix  Linux  macOS  and Windows  Python 2 and Python 3  EDITS  By  radato os system was replaced by subprocess call  This avoids shell injection vulnerability in cases where your hostname string might not be validated   import platform      For getting the operating system name import subprocess    For executing a shell command  def ping host               Returns True if host  str  responds to a ping request      Remember that a host may not respond to a ping  ICMP  request even if the host name is valid                 Option for the number of packets as a function of     param    -n  if platform system   lower     windows  else  -c         Building the command  Ex   ping -c 1 google com      command     ping   param   1   host       return subprocess call command     0   Note that  according to  ikrase on Windows this function will still return True if you get a Destination Host Unreachable error   Explanation  The command is ping in both Windows and Unix-like systems  The option -n  Windows  or -c  Unix  controls the number of packets which in this example was set to 1   platform system   returns the platform name  Ex   Darwin  on macOS  subprocess call   performs a system call  Ex  subprocess call   ls   -l

User · Answer

My version of a ping function    Works on Python 3 5 and later  on Windows and Linux  should work on Mac  but can t test it   On Windows  returns False if the ping command fails with  Destination Host Unreachable    And does not show any output  either as a pop-up window or in command line    import platform  subprocess  def ping host or ip  packets 1  timeout 1000           Calls system  ping  command  returns True if ping succeeds      Required parameter  host or ip  str  address of host to ping      Optional parameters  packets  int  number of retries   timeout  int  ms to wait for response      Does not show any output  either as popup window or in command line      Python 3 5   Windows and Linux compatible  Mac not tested  should work                The ping command is the same for Windows and Linux  except for the  number of packets  flag      if platform system   lower       windows           command     ping    -n   str packets    -w   str timeout   host or ip            run parameters  capture output  discard error messages  do not show window         result   subprocess run command  stdin subprocess DEVNULL  stdout subprocess PIPE  stderr subprocess DEVNULL  creationflags 0x08000000            0x0800000 is a windows-only Popen flag to specify that a new process will not create a window            On Python 3 7   you can use a subprocess constant              result   subprocess run command  capture output True  creationflags subprocess CREATE NO WINDOW            On windows 7   ping returns 0  ok  when host is not reachable  to be sure host is responding            we search the text  TTL   on the command output  If it s there  the ping really had a response          return result returncode    0 and b TTL   in result stdout     else          command     ping    -c   str packets    -w   str timeout   host or ip            run parameters  discard output and error messages         result   subprocess run command  stdin subprocess DEVNULL  stdout subprocess DEVNULL  stderr subprocess DEVNULL          return result returncode    0   Feel free to use it as you will

User · Answer

This script works on Windows  and should work on other OSes   It works on Windows  Debian  and macosx  need a test on solaris   import os import platform   def isUp hostname        giveFeedback   False      if platform system       Windows           response   os system  ping   hostname   -n 1       else          response   os system  ping -c 1     hostname       isUpBool   False     if response    0          if giveFeedback              print hostname   is up           isUpBool   True     else          if giveFeedback              print hostname   is down        return isUpBool  print isUp  example com     Example domain print isUp  localhost     Your computer print isUp  invalid example com     Unresolvable hostname  https   tools ietf org html rfc6761 print isUp  192 168 1 1     Pings local router print isUp  192 168 1 135     Pings a local computer - will differ for your network

User · Answer

I needed a faster ping sweep and I didn t want to use any external libraries  so I resolved to using concurrency using built-in asyncio   This code requires python 3 7  and is made and tested on Linux only  It won t work on Windows but I am sure you can easily change it to work on Windows   I ain t an expert with asyncio but I used this great article Speed Up Your Python Program With Concurrency and I came up with these lines of codes  I tried to make it as simple as possible  so most likely you will need to add more code to it to suit your needs   It doesn t return true or false  I thought it would be more convenient just to make it print the IP that responds to a ping request  I think it is pretty fast  pinging 255 ips in nearly 10 seconds      usr bin python3  import asyncio  async def ping host               Prints the hosts that respond to ping request             ping process   await asyncio create subprocess shell  ping -c 1     host      gt   dev null 2 gt  amp 1       await ping process wait        if ping process returncode    0          print host      return    async def ping all        tasks           for i in range 1 255           ip    192 168 1     format i          task   asyncio ensure future ping ip           tasks append task       await asyncio gather  tasks  return exceptions   True   asyncio run ping all      Sample output   192 168 1 1 192 168 1 3 192 168 1 102 192 168 1 106 192 168 1 6   Note that the IPs are not in order  as the IP is printed as soon it replies  so the one that responds first gets printed first

User · Answer

My reduction using ideas from answers in this post but only using the newer recommended subprocess module and python3   import subprocess import platform  operating sys   platform system   nas    192 168 0 10   def ping ip         ping command     ping   ip   -n    1   instead of ping command     ping   ip   -n 1   for Windows     ping command     ping   ip   -n    1   if operating sys     Windows  else   ping   ip   -c 1       shell needed   True if operating sys     Windows  else False      ping output   subprocess run ping command shell shell needed stdout subprocess PIPE      success   ping output returncode     return True if success    0 else False  out   ping nas  print out

User · Answer

Use this it s tested on python 2 7 and works fine it returns ping time in milliseconds if success and return False on fail   import platform subproccess re def Ping hostname timeout       if platform system       Windows           command  ping   hostname   -n 1 -w   str timeout 1000      else          command  ping -i   str timeout    -c 1     hostname     proccess   subprocess Popen command  stdout subprocess PIPE      matches re match    time   0-9   ms     proccess stdout read   re DOTALL      if matches          return matches group 1      else           return False

User · Answer

Seems simple enough  but gave me fits  I kept getting  icmp open socket operation not permitted  or else the solutions would hang up if the server was off line  If  however  what you want to know is that the server is alive and you are running a web server on that server  then curl will do the job  If you have ssh and certificates  then ssh and a simple command will suffice  Here is the code   from easyprocess import EasyProcess   as root  pip install EasyProcess def ping ip       ping  ssh  s date exit   ip    test ssh alive or     ping  curl -IL  s   ip         test if http alive     response len EasyProcess ping  call timeout 2  stdout      return response  integer 0 if no response in 2 seconds

User · Answer

Because I like to have my Python program universal on version 2 7 and 3 x and on platform Linux  Mac OS and Windows  I had to modify the existing examples     shebang does not work over all platforms   ping py  2016-02-25 Rudolf   subprocess call   is preferred to os system     works under Python 2 7 and 3 4   works under Linux  Mac OS  Windows  def ping host               Returns True if host responds to a ping request             import subprocess  platform        Ping parameters as function of OS     ping str    -n 1  if  platform system   lower     windows  else  -c 1      args    ping           ping str         host     need sh   False if  platform system   lower     windows  else True        Ping     return subprocess call args  shell need sh     0    test call print ping  192 168 17 142

User · Answer

After looking around  I ended up writing my own ping module  which is designed to monitor large numbers of addresses  is asynchronous and doesn t use a lot of system resources  You can find it here  https   github com romana multi-ping  It s Apache licensed  so you can use it in your project in any way you see fit   The main reasons for implementing my own are the restrictions of the other approaches    Many of the solutions mentioned here require an exec out to a command line utility  This is quite inefficient and resource hungry if you need to monitor large numbers of IP addresses  Others mention some older python ping modules  I looked at those and in the end  they all had some issue or the other  such as not correctly setting packet IDs  and didn t handle the ping-ing of large numbers of addresses

User · Answer

For python3 there s a very simple and convenient python module ping3   pip install ping3  needs root privileges     from ping3 import ping  verbose ping ping  example com      Returns delay in seconds   gt  gt  gt  0 215697261510079666   This module allows for the customization of some parameters as well

User · Answer

There is a module called pyping that can do this   It can be installed with pip   pip install pyping   It is pretty simple to use  however  when using this module  you need root access due to the fact that it is crafting raw packets under the hood    import pyping  r   pyping ping  google com    if r ret code    0      print  Success   else      print  Failed with     format r ret code

User · Answer

If you don t need to support Windows  here s a really concise way to do it   import os hostname    google com   example response   os system  ping -c 1     hostname    and then check the response    if response    0    print hostname   is up   else    print hostname   is down     This works because ping returns a non-zero value if the connection fails   The return value actually differs depending on the network error   You could also change the ping timeout  in seconds  using the  -t  option   Note  this will output text to the console

User · Answer

import subprocess ping response   subprocess Popen    bin ping    -c1    -w100    192 168 0 1    stdout subprocess PIPE  stdout read

User · Answer

I ended up finding this question regarding a similar scenario   I tried out pyping but the example given by Naveen didn t work for me in Windows under Python 2 7     An example that worked for me is   import pyping  response   pyping send  Your IP    if response  ret code      0      print  reachable   else      print  unreachable

User · Answer

1    usr bin python   2   3 import os   4 import sys   5 import time   6   7 os system  clear     8 home network    172 16 23     9 mine       10  11 for i in range 1  256    12         z    home network   str i   13         result   os system  ping -c 1    str z    14         os system  clear    15         if result    0   16                 mine append z   17  18 for j in mine   19         print  host    j    is up    A simple one i just cooked up in a minute  using icmplib needs root privs the below works pretty good   HTH

User · Answer

I had similar requirement so i implemented it as shown below  It is tested on Windows 64 bit and Linux   import subprocess def systemCommand Command       Output          Error               try          Output   subprocess check output Command stderr   subprocess STDOUT shell  True       except subprocess CalledProcessError as e           Invalid command raises this exception         Error    e output       if Output          Stdout   Output split   n       else          Stdout          if Error          Stderr   Error split   n       else          Stderr           return  Stdout Stderr    in main Host    ip to ping  NoOfPackets   2 Timeout   5000  in milliseconds  Command for windows Command    ping -n  0  -w  1   2   format NoOfPackets Timeout Host   Command for linux   Command    ping -c  0  -w  1   2   format NoOfPackets Timeout Host  Stdout Stderr   systemCommand Command  if Stdout     print  Host      is reachable   format Host   else     print  Host      is unreachable   format Host     When IP is not reachable subprocess check output   raises an exception  Extra verification can be done by extracting information from output line  Packets  Sent   2  Received   2  Lost   0  0  loss

User · Answer

usr bin python3  import subprocess as sp  ip    192 168 122 60  status result   sp getstatusoutput  ping -c1 -w2     ip   if status    0       print  System     ip     is UP     else      print  System     ip     is DOWN

User · Answer

WINDOWS ONLY - Can t believe no-ones cracked open Win32 PingStatus Using a simple WMI query we return an object full of really detailed info for free   import wmi     new WMI object c   wmi WMI      here is where the ping actually is triggered x   c Win32 PingStatus Address  google com      how big is this thing  - 1 element print  length x     len x     lets look at the object  WMI Object  n  print x    print out the whole returned object   only x 0  element has values in it print   nPrint Whole Object - can directly reference the field names  n  for i in x      print i     just a single field in the object - Method 1 print  Method 1   i is actually x 0       for i in x      print  Response  t   i ResponseTime   ms      print  TTL  t   i TimeToLive    or better yet directly access the field you want print   npinged    x 0  ProtocolAddress    and got reply in    x 0  ResponseTime   ms    sample output

User · Answer

Here s a solution using Python s subprocess module and the ping CLI tool provided by the underlying OS  Tested on Windows and Linux  Support setting a network timeout  Doesn t need root privileges  at least on Windows and Linux    import platform import subprocess  def ping host  network timeout 3          Send a ping packet to the specified host  using the system  ping  command         args              ping             platform os   platform system   lower        if platform os     windows           args extend   -n    1            args extend   -w   str network timeout   1000        elif platform os in   linux    darwin            args extend   -c    1            args extend   -W   str network timeout        else          raise NotImplemented  Unsupported OS      format platform os        args append host       try          if platform os     windows               output   subprocess run args  check True  universal newlines True  stdout              if output and  TTL  not in output                  return False         else              subprocess run args  check True           return True     except  subprocess CalledProcessError  subprocess TimeoutExpired           return False

User · Answer

Make Sure pyping is installed or install it pip install pyping     usr bin python import pyping  response   pyping ping  Your IP    if response ret code    0      print  reachable   else      print  unreachable

User · Answer

Programmatic ICMP ping is complicated due to the elevated privileges required to send raw ICMP packets  and calling ping binary is ugly  For server monitoring  you can achieve the same result using a technique called TCP ping     pip3 install tcping  gt  gt  gt  from tcping import Ping   Ping host  port  timeout   gt  gt  gt  ping   Ping  212 69 63 54   22  60   gt  gt  gt  ping ping 3  Connected to 212 69 63 54  22   seq 1 time 23 71 ms Connected to 212 69 63 54  22   seq 2 time 24 38 ms Connected to 212 69 63 54  22   seq 3 time 24 00 ms   Internally  this simply establishes a TCP connection to the target server and drops it immediately  measuring time elapsed  This particular implementation is a bit limited in that it doesn t handle closed ports but for your own servers it works pretty well

User · Answer

Using Multi-ping  pip install multiPing  I made this simple code  simply copy and paste if you will     from multiping import MultiPing  def ping host n   0       if n gt 0           avg   0         for i in range  n               avg    ping host          avg   avg n       Create a MultiPing object to test hosts   addresses     mp   MultiPing  host          Send the pings to those addresses     mp send          With a 1 second timout  wait for responses  may return sooner if all       results are received       responses  no responses   mp receive 1        for addr  rtt in responses items            RTT   rtt       if no responses            Sending pings once more  but just to those addresses that have not           responded  yet          mp send           responses  no responses   mp receive 1          RTT   -1      return RTT   Usage    Getting the latency average  in seconds  of host  192 168 0 123  using 10 samples ping  192 168 0 123  10    If you want a single sample  the second parameter  10  can be ignored   Hope it helps

User · Answer

usr bin python3  import subprocess as sp  def ipcheck        status result   sp getstatusoutput  ping -c1 -w2     str pop       if status    0          print  System     str pop      is UP         else          print  System     str pop      is DOWN       pop   input  Enter the ip address     ipcheck

[python] Pinging servers in Python

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