How to ping multiple IP addresses using Python script
NDUKWE CHIDERA K.Introduction
The ping utility is used to check if a host connected to a network is active, if they are reachable, and how fast the link to them is on the network. With this tool, one host on a network can send a
There is a simple problem here, in the event that requires you to ping a pool of hosts on a network, how would you go about it? You won’t possibly ping the hosts one after the other. That would be really difficult. In this shot I will show you how you can do this using a Python script.
Pinging multiple IPs in Python
With the following steps you can easily ping multiple hosts with a python script.
Step 1
- Make sure you have Python up and running on your computer system.
- Create a
.pyfile and two.txtfiles. The python file will contain the script while one of the text files will contain your list of IP addresses separated by space and the other text file will be used by the script to save the ping output
Example
ip_ping.py is my script. ip_list.txt is my IP list file. And finally info_output.txt will hold information from the ping process.
Step 2
- Open your
ip_list.txtfiles in a text editor preferably notepad and add your list of IP addresses you wish to ping starting each on a new line.
Example
ip_list_txt
191.198.174.192
216.58.223.206
wikipedia.org
And that is the sample list of IP addresses we shall ping in our example.
Note how we also included a host name, that will work perfectly as well.
Step 3
- Now open up the
.pyfile you have created and add the following codes as shown below.
import os
with open("ip_list.txt") as file:
park = file.read()
park = park.splitlines()
print(f" {park} \n")
# ping for each ip in the file
for ip in park:
response = os.popen(f"ping {ip} ").read()
#saving some ping output details to output file
if("Request timed out." or "unreachable") in response:
print(response)
f = open("ip_output.txt","a")
f.write(str(ip) + ' link is down'+'\n')
f.close()
else:
print(response)
f = open("ip_output.txt","a")
f.write(str(ip) + ' is up '+'\n')
f.close()
# print output file to screen
with open("ip_output.txt") as file:
output = file.read()
f.close()
print(output)
with open("ip_output.txt","w") as file:
passExplanation
-
In
line 1theOSmodule is imported. -
In line 4 using the
withkeyword, theopen()function was called and the complete name of the file was provided as a parameter. The details of the file was saved in theparkvariable which was looped through using theforloop online 9. -
As the looped continues, on
line 9and14anif elsecondition was placed to check for some words in the response variable created inline 10to hold the result of the ping command. On return oftrue, we check on theresponseof the code in theifblock, which is executed. Otherwise the code in theelseblock runs. -
The
ip_output.txtfile is opened inappend ('a')mode to record the status of each IP address as indicated by the ping command in theif-elsecondition block. The content of the file is displayed by code online 25and also erased afterwards online 29.
As customary in Python scripts, maintain a consistent tab method.
Output
The image below is an image of a successful run of the code above. Do download, edit, and enjoy your pinging.
RELATED TAGS
CONTRIBUTOR
NDUKWE CHIDERA K.View all Courses
