How to ping a server using PHP?

matar84

<?
$result = system("ping -c 1 eqlounge.com"); 

echo "<CENTER>"; 
echo "Your ping to our network is $result ms"; 
echo "</CENTER>"; 
?>

This won't work, it results in "Your ping to our network is ms".

dalecosp

Tried exec() or backticks?

$resultStatus = `ping -c 1 $host`;
print "You pinged in $resultStatus milliseconds";

🙂

matar84

<?
$resultStatus = `ping eqlounge.com`; 
print "You pinged in $resultStatus milliseconds";
?>

Tells me this "You pinged in milliseconds" :-(

Any ideas. Is it something with my server not allowing it?

dalecosp

Possibly. Look at the manual for exec(), escapeshellcmd(), system(), etc.

If PHP is running in 'safe mode'; no way it'll work, I think.

If it's Apache/mod_php, I don't think that'll work, either.

dalecosp

This works here:

<?

$comm='ping -c 1 yahoo.com';

$res=shell_exec($comm);

echo $res;

?>

matar84

Err, still shows up as a blank spot. Nothing :-(

Kardall

the reason is this: http://ca3.php.net/manual/en/function.exec.php

... exec() executes the given command, however it does not output anything. It simply returns the last line from the result of the command. ...

string exec ( string command [, array output [, int return_var]])

That is how u use it as per php.net exec() information sheet.

so you'd go:

<?php
$itemnum = 1;
exec("ping -c 1 eqlounge.com",$data_array,$iValue);
foreach($item in $data_array)
   {
      echo "Item #" . $itemnum . " - " . $item;
      $itemnum++;
   }
?>

From there, you should be able to see which set of data you need. That way, in your code, you will be able to say, for example set data number 5 is the ping in ms.

so you would do your exec() statement as per above, but you know it's the 5th number... $data_array[5];

that would be your ping... so... ya... i think that should work 😃 even if i'm really new at php and such, I hope my other language skills will do me justice... btw. If php starts arrays at 0 then the 5th set in the array would be $data_array[4]; just fyi