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?

Accepted 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'])`.

Pinging servers in Python

Solution

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