[RESOLVED] Pinging a server

[iNFERiON]

Hello all,

I am writing a ping function to have PHP ping a specific server and check how many packets returned to the ping request. The ping itself works, I get the output on screen and it all looks OK.

Here's the source so far:

function ping($server) {
	$ping = system('ping -c 2 -t 5 ' . $server . '');
	$reply = preg_match('/([0-2]) packets received/', $ping);
	$packets = preg_split('[0-2]', $reply);
	if($packets>0) {
		$status = "<font color=\"green\">Online</font>";
	} elseif($packets==0) {
		$status = "<font color=\"red\">Offline</font>";
	} else {
		$status = "<font color=\"black\">Unknown</font>";
	}
	return $status;
}
// Test ping: Google.com
ping('www.google.com');

This script does ping, however it does not give the Online/Offline/Unknown response. Why is this ? I think my regex might not be OK, never been very good at them.

Also, is there a way to supress the raw server reply on the ping command and have it say "Pinging..." instead ? And replace that with Online/Offline/Unknown when the command executed ?

[scrupul0us]

its your regex AND the host... i tried google and aol and i didnt get ping replies... but your regex is def wrong... i suck at regexs or id write it for you... bump for this nice guy 🙂

[bradgrafelman]

Try changing this:

    $reply = preg_match('/([0-2]) packets received/', $ping); 
    $packets = preg_split('[0-2]', $reply); 

to this:

    $reply = preg_match('/([0-2]) packets received/', $ping, $data); 
    $packets = intval($data[1]);

Also, if that doesn't work properly, can you show us an output of the $ping variable (unaltered, right after it executes the ping)?

[iNFERiON]

Hmm, this doesn't do what I want.
This is the output of the system command:

PING www.l.google.com (66.102.9.147): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 66.102.9.147: icmp_seq=0 ttl=244 time=36.163 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.9.147: icmp_seq=1 ttl=244 time=36.406 ms

--- www.l.google.com ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 36.163/36.284/36.406/0.122 ms

What I want this to do is to take the "2 packets received" part and see what the number is. If $packets==0, then it should display "Offline". When $packets>0, it should display "Online", else it should display "Unknown".

With the modification above it says "Offline, I debugged it and it seems to think there are 0 packets received.

[bradgrafelman]

Using this code:

function ping($server) { 
    $ping = shell_exec('ping -c 2 -t 5 ' . $server . '');
    $reply = preg_match('/([0-2]) packets received/', $ping, $data); 
    $packets = intval($data[1]); 
    if($packets>0) { 
        $status = "<font color=\"green\">Online</font>"; 
    } elseif($packets==0) { 
        $status = "<font color=\"red\">Offline</font>"; 
    } else { 
        $status = "<font color=\"black\">Unknown</font>"; 
    } 
    return $status; 
}

it seemed to work properly for me. NOTE that I changed [man]system/man to [man]shell_exec/man.

If you visit the manual page, you'll see that [man]system/man only returns the last line of the output.

[scrupul0us]

that doesnt work me... i get an error:

Notice: Undefined offset: 1 in /var/www/htdocs/scripting/ping/index.php on line 5

[bradgrafelman]

Hmm. Try this:

$ping = shell_exec('ping -c 2 -t 5 ' . $server); 
echo '<hr>' . $ping . '<hr>';

What is the output?

[scrupul0us]

this works for me:

<?php
function ping($server) {
    $ping = shell_exec('ping -c 2 -t 5 ' . $server . '');
    #$reply = preg_match('/([0-2]) packets received/', $ping, $data);     

    $reply = preg_match('/([0-2]) received/', $ping, $data);
    $packets = intval($data[1]);
	if($packets>0) 
	{
        $status = "<font color=\"green\">Online</font>";
    } 
	elseif($packets==0) 
	{
        $status = "<font color=\"red\">Offline</font>";
    } 
	else 
	{
        $status = "<font color=\"black\">Unknown</font>";
    }
    return $status;    

}
// Test ping: Google.com
#ping('www.google.com');
echo ping('www.ironchefbadass.com');
?>

That works for me... my ping output is different so I had to change the REGEX... and nothing was being echo'd... you only returned the value in your function and never ECHO'D it when you called it... i also changed the test server to mine b/c google and aol wont return ping requests for me

[bradgrafelman]

Ah, didn't catch the bit about him not echo'ing it.

Yes, if your PING output has the "packets received" format, you'll only need to echo the ping() function's returned data.

[iNFERiON]

Thanks scrupul0us, your code did the trick 🙂