Pinging servers in Python

N

33

271

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?

Nerine answered 1/6, 2010 at 21:27 Comment(1)

related: Ping a site in Python? – Filefish 2/11, 2012 at 13:49

S

207

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']).

Stillas answered 20/9, 2015 at 22:24 Comment(13)

Note that this will still return true (on Windows) if you get a "destination host unreachable" reply from a different host. – Mislay 29/12, 2016 at 20:11

I'm finding that I will occasionally get a ping success when my modem is off??? That's testing "8.8.8.8" and "google.com" on a Windows 10 OS. Something is not quite right. – Ozonize 10/11, 2018 at 6:23

That cannot happen @Markus. Please, test by hand and with a modified version of the code above, and tell us the result. By hand: 1) open cmd 2) ping 8.8.8.8 -n 1 3) echo %ERRORLEVEL%. Code: Modify the last line of the Python code to return system_call(command). With proper connectivity you will get 0 (zero). With your modem off, you must get some error code. Of course, both methods must return the same error code under same conditions. – Stillas 12/11, 2018 at 0:35

It did happen and I was using the exact code, word for word. I understand and belief your comments, there is no way a command line ping could succeed when there in no connection, hence my thought something wasn't working correctly in the python to command line operation. I'll give the update a try and see how it goes. Thanks. – Ozonize 13/11, 2018 at 9:35

@Ozonize see ikrase's comment. – Sugden 26/1, 2019 at 5:26

Am I the only one here to notice that system.call is a typo and should be subprocess.call? – Boatswain 7/3, 2019 at 9:36

You are right. Some one edited my original answer. I will fix that. Thanks – Stillas 8/3, 2019 at 1:9

How would we get the response time as a variable? – Beckerman 24/6, 2019 at 17:16

How would you make a cross-compatible timeout flag? – Neese 15/5, 2021 at 14:37

I can confirm that the windows ping command is hokey with its return value. I am pinging a system I have disconnected from the network, another IP is responding that it isn't available, but I am getting 0% loss and an ERRORLEVEL of 0. Here is a paste of the results pastebin.pl/view/2437bb7c – Talc 3/8, 2021 at 13:5

If this doesn't work well on windows, it would be good to remove it from the title. This is not the super-universal solution. – Same 6/5, 2022 at 6:19

Hello @Sany. This solution woks on Windows. The problem reported by ikrase could be solved. I can image two ways of doing that. However, I do not have any installation of Windows available to try. Maybe somebody in a future could improve the answer by including that fix. – Stillas 6/5, 2022 at 18:58

In a Celery task and Python 3 it returns FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'ping': 'ping' – Nobility 29/6, 2022 at 17:48

D

224

If you don't need to support Windows, here's a really concise way to do it:

import os
param = '-n' if os.sys.platform().lower()=='win32' else '-c'
hostname = "google.com" #example
response = os.system(f"ping {param} 1 {hostname}")

#and then check the response...
if response == 0:
  print(f"{hostname} is up!")
else:
  print(f"{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.

Dropsy answered 1/5, 2012 at 18:29 Comment(14)

I ended up with this variant response = os.system("ping -c 1 -w2 " + hostname + " > /dev/null 2>&1") – Mm 13/8, 2013 at 21:27

@jeckyll2hide man ping, send just 1 packet with deadline 2 seconds and redirect all output to /dev/null, retrieve just the return value. – Mm 6/5, 2014 at 13:30

@ManuelGutierrez I think you want "-W 2000" (timeout after 2000 milliseconds) and maybe "-t 3" (exit after 3 seconds, no matter what) – Cathe 19/10, 2014 at 10:8

You missed to quote hostname! – Sardine 11/5, 2015 at 14:57

-w and -W take values in seconds not milliseconds. Check man ping to make sure. – Paulus 15/6, 2015 at 17:29

I'm just curious - why won't this actually work on Windows? – Diuresis 13/11, 2018 at 17:35

@SourceMatters The param to specify number of packets is different for windows (-n) and unix (-c). – Judijudicable 14/11, 2018 at 22:19

Ahh ok cool! I ultimately ended up doing the 2nd Answer instead, and parse the output, as I was a victim of the "Destination Host Unreachable" responses as well. – Diuresis 15/11, 2018 at 23:2

If you get the hostname string from a user, they could easily hack your server by giving you a "url" like 'google.com; rm -rf /*'. Use subprocess.run(["ping", "-c", "1", hostname]).returncode instead. – Sugden 26/1, 2019 at 4:51

How would we get the ping response time? – Beckerman 24/6, 2019 at 17:14

Here's my solution from Python 3.6, using the newer subprocess.run: command = ["ping", "-c", "1", "-w2", host] return subprocess.run(args=command, stdout=subprocess.DEVNULL, stderr=subprocess.DEVNULL).returncode == 0 – Stabilizer 29/6, 2021 at 16:14

On Windows, ping -w argument takes MILISECONDS. – Belgium 18/9, 2021 at 17:19

I tried this but it gives me always 1 as result. I think this need to be run in admin mode but any idea on how to do it? – Argosy 12/4, 2023 at 14:28

In case someone didn't mention this before os.sys.platform is not a method, it's a string. >>> os.sys.platform() Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> TypeError: 'str' object is not callable The appropriate call is: >>> os.sys.platform.lower() 'linux' – Unpleasant 26/3, 2024 at 18:4

S

207

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