Implementing ping using Python

Question

I'm trying to ping a range of servers and I want to store the output of the ping. This is as far as I have got.

import subprocess

string_part = 'ping -W 2 -c 2  64.233.'

for i in range(160,165):            
     for j in range(0,5):   
          prompt = string_part + str(i) + '.' + str(j)
          result = subprocess.call(prompt, shell = True)

I thought that if I give "print(result)" after this it would print the result. However, it only returns 1. I don't want to use threads as of now. I think I'm missing something! :(

Martijn Pieters · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-05 14:51:09Z

1

subprocess.call() returns the exit code of the process. To get the stdout output of the ping command, use a pipe and Popen.communicate() instead:

string_part = 'ping -W 2 -c 2  64.233.{}.{}'

for i in range(160, 165):            
     for j in range(5):   
          prompt = string_part.format(i, j)
          proc = subprocess.Popen(prompt, shell=True, stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
          result, _ = proc.communicate()

You can and should avoid using the shell; just pass in the arguments in a list:

command = ['ping', '-W', '2', '-c', '2']  
ip_template = '64.233.{}.{}'

for i in range(160, 165):            
     for j in range(5):   
          ip_address = ip_template.format(i, j)
          proc = subprocess.Popen(command + [ip_address], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
          result, _ = proc.communicate()

answered Dec 5, 2014 at 14:51

Martijn Pieters

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2 Comments

ashishv Over a year ago

Thank you. This works! I read that I shouldn't use shell = True so I just decided not to add it but didn't know a workaround for it. I still don't understand how it works just because you passed it as a list?

Martijn Pieters Over a year ago

@user165971: the shell would do the same; parse out the string into separate arguments, start the command and pass in the rest of the arguments as a list. Without the shell, we need to do that work directly, but in Python that usually just makes it easier.

vks · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-05 14:46:42Z

0

import subprocess

string_part = 'ping -W 2 -c 2  64.233.'
result=[]
for i in range(160,165):            
     for j in range(0,5):   
          prompt = string_part + str(i) + '.' + str(j)
          result.append(subprocess.call(prompt, shell = True))
print result

answered Dec 5, 2014 at 14:46

vks

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Comments

Padraic Cunningham · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-05 15:00:16Z

Just store output in a dict with the ip as the key and Popen.communicate[0] as the value

string_part = 'ping -W 2 -c 2  64.233.{}.{}'
d = {}

for i in range(160, 165):
    for j in range(0, 5):
        prompt = string_part.format(i,j).split()
        proc = subprocess.Popen(prompt, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
        d[prompt[-1]] = proc.communicate()[0]
print d

{'64.233.162.1': 'PING 64.233.162.1 (64.233.162.1) 56(84) bytes of data.\n\n--- 64.233.162.1 ping statistics ---\n2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 1007ms\n\n', '64.233.163.0': 'PING 64.233.163.0 (64.233.163.0) 56(84) bytes of data.\n\n--- 64.233.163.0 ping statistics ---\n2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 1006ms\n\n', '64.233.162.4': 'PING 64.233.162.4 (64.233.162.4) 56(84) bytes of data.\n\n--- 64.233.162.4 ping statistics ---\n2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 1006ms\n\n', '64.233.163.2': 'PING 64.233.163.2 (64.233.163.2) 56(84) bytes of data.\n\n--- 64.233.163.2 ping statistics ---\n2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 1006ms\n\n', '64.233.163.3': 'PING 64.233.163.3 (64.233.163.3) 56(84) bytes of data.\n\n--- 64.233.163.3 ping statistics ---\n2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 1007ms\n\n', '64.233.163.4': 'PING 64.233.163.4 (64.233.163.4) 56(84) bytes of data.\n\n--- 64.233.163.4 ping statistics ---\n2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 1008ms\n\n', '64.233.162.0': 'PING 64.233.162.0 (64.233.162.0) 56(84) bytes of data.\n\n--- 64.233.162.0 ping statistics ---\n2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 1006ms\n\n', '64.233.162.3': 'PING 64.233.162.3 (64.233.162.3) 56(84) bytes of data.\n\n--- 64.233.162.3 ping statistics ---\n2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 1006ms\n\n', '64.233.162.2': 'PING 64.233.162.2 (64.233.162.2) 56(84) bytes of data.\n\n--- 64.233.162.2 ping statistics ---\n2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 1006ms\n\n', '64.233.164.3': 'PING 64.233.164.3 (64.233.164.3) 56(84) bytes of data.\n\n--- 64.233.164.3 ping statistics ---\n2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 1006ms\n\n', '64.233.164.2': 'PING 64.233.164.2 (64.233.164.2) 56(84) bytes of data.\n\n--- 64.233.164.2 ping statistics ---\n2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 1006ms\n\n', '64.233.164.1': 'PING 64.233.164.1 (64.233.164.1) 56(84) bytes of data.\n\n--- 64.233.164.1 ping statistics ---\n2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 1006ms\n\n', '64.233.164.0': 'PING 64.233.164.0 (64.233.164.0) 56(84) bytes of data.\n\n--- 64.233.164.0 ping statistics ---\n2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 1007ms\n\n', '64.233.164.4': 'PING 64.233.164.4 (64.233.164.4) 56(84) bytes of data.\n\n--- 64.233.164.4 ping statistics ---\n2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 1006ms\n\n', '64.233.160.4': 'PING 64.233.160.4 (64.233.160.4) 56(84) bytes of data.\n\n--- 64.233.160.4 ping statistics ---\n2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 1006ms\n\n', '64.233.160.1': 'PING 64.233.160.1 (64.233.160.1) 56(84) bytes of data.\n\n--- 64.233.160.1 ping statistics ---\n2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 1007ms\n\n', '64.233.163.1': 'PING 64.233.163.1 (64.233.163.1) 56(84) bytes of data.\n\n--- 64.233.163.1 ping statistics ---\n2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 1006ms\n\n', '64.233.161.2': 'PING 64.233.161.2 (64.233.161.2) 56(84) bytes of data.\n\n--- 64.233.161.2 ping statistics ---\n2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 1009ms\n\n', '64.233.161.3': 'PING 64.233.161.3 (64.233.161.3) 56(84) bytes of data.\n\n--- 64.233.161.3 ping statistics ---\n2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 1006ms\n\n', '64.233.161.0': 'PING 64.233.161.0 (64.233.161.0) 56(84) bytes of data.\n\n--- 64.233.161.0 ping statistics ---\n2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 1006ms\n\n', '64.233.161.1': 'PING 64.233.161.1 (64.233.161.1) 56(84) bytes of data.\n\n--- 64.233.161.1 ping statistics ---\n2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 999ms\n\n', '64.233.160.3': 'PING 64.233.160.3 (64.233.160.3) 56(84) bytes of data.\n\n--- 64.233.160.3 ping statistics ---\n2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 1006ms\n\n', '64.233.160.2': 'PING 64.233.160.2 (64.233.160.2) 56(84) bytes of data.\n\n--- 64.233.160.2 ping statistics ---\n2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 1007ms\n\n', '64.233.161.4': 'PING 64.233.161.4 (64.233.161.4) 56(84) bytes of data.\n\n--- 64.233.161.4 ping statistics ---\n2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 1007ms\n\n', '64.233.160.0': 'PING 64.233.160.0 (64.233.160.0) 56(84) bytes of data.\n\n--- 64.233.160.0 ping statistics ---\n2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 1008ms\n\n'}

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