In this blog, we will be creating basic ping sweep program using Python programming language.

Before we start writing ping sweep program, we need to discuss about ping or ICMP packets. Ping or ICMP consits of two packets ICMP Request and ICMP Reply.

In the below network, source sends ICMP Request packet and destination reply or acknowledge with ICMP reply packet.

Now there are some cases in which source does not get or receive ICMP reply packets from destination machine. We see Request Time Out or destination host unreachable on the CMD.

Below are the two conditions in which source does not receive ICMP reply packets.

1. Destination machine is shutdown
2. Ping or ICMP has been blocked by the firewall

 

Ping Sweep Program

We can use ping sweep program to find live host in the network by sending ICMP ECHO request and ICMP ECHO reply packets

Ping Sweep program make use of OS module and os.popen() function. In Windows operating system we use ping command from CMD to find live host. We have to provide ping command as the parameter to os.popen() function. We can pass DOS commands inside os.popen() function

Step1 Importing os module

Step 2 Using os.popen() function and passing ‘ping 1.1.1.1’ DOS command as a parameter  to function. Assigning output of ping to result variable

Step 3 Printing each line of result variable using for loop

Below is the code

import os
result = os.popen('ping 1.1.1.1')
for line in result.readlines():
    print(line)

Output

Pinging 1.1.1.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 1.1.1.1: bytes=32 time=214ms TTL=54
Reply from 1.1.1.1: bytes=32 time=265ms TTL=54
Reply from 1.1.1.1: bytes=32 time=272ms TTL=54
Reply from 1.1.1.1: bytes=32 time=285ms TTL=54

Ping statistics for 1.1.1.1:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 214ms, Maximum = 285ms, Average = 259ms
Process finished with exit code 0