How can I ping a server port with PHP?

Question

I want a PHP script which allows you to ping an IP address and a port number (ip:port). I found a similar script but it works only for websites, not ip:port.

<?php

function ping($host, $port, $timeout) 
{ 
  $tB = microtime(true); 
  $fP = fSockOpen($host, $port, $errno, $errstr, $timeout); 
  if (!$fP) { return "down"; } 
  $tA = microtime(true); 
  return round((($tA - $tB) * 1000), 0)." ms"; 
}

//Echoing it will display the ping if the host is up, if not it'll say "down".
echo ping("www.google.com", 80, 10);

?>

I want this for a game server.

The idea is that I can type in the IP address and port number, and I get the ping response.

Answer 1

I think the answer to this question pretty much sums up the problem with your question.

If what you want to do is find out whether a given host will accept TCP connections on port 80, you can do this:

$host = '193.33.186.70'; 
$port = 80; 
$waitTimeoutInSeconds = 1; 
if($fp = fsockopen($host,$port,$errCode,$errStr,$waitTimeoutInSeconds)){   
   // It worked 
} else {
   // It didn't work 
} 
fclose($fp);

For anything other than TCP it will be more difficult (although since you specify 80, I guess you are looking for an active HTTP server, so TCP is what you want). TCP is sequenced and acknowledged, so you will implicitly receive a returned packet when a connection is successfully made. Most other transport protocols (commonly UDP, but others as well) do not behave in this manner, and datagrams will not be acknowledged unless the overlayed Application Layer protocol implements it.

The fact that you are asking this question in this manner tells me you have a fundamental gap in your knowledge on Transport Layer protocols. You should read up on ICMP and TCP, as well as the OSI Model.

Also, here's a slightly cleaner version to ping to hosts.

// Function to check response time
function pingDomain($domain){
    $starttime = microtime(true);
    $file      = fsockopen ($domain, 80, $errno, $errstr, 10);
    $stoptime  = microtime(true);
    $status    = 0;

    if (!$file) $status = -1;  // Site is down
    else {
        fclose($file);
        $status = ($stoptime - $starttime) * 1000;
        $status = floor($status);
    }
    return $status;
}

Answer 2

In case the OP really wanted an ICMP-Ping, there are some proposals within the User Contributed Notes to socket_create() [link], which use raw sockets. Be aware that on UNIX like systems root access is required.

Update: note that the usec argument has no function on windows. Minimum timeout is 1 second.

In any case, this is the code of the top voted ping function:

function ping($host, $timeout = 1) {
    /* ICMP ping packet with a pre-calculated checksum */
    $package = "\x08\x00\x7d\x4b\x00\x00\x00\x00PingHost";
    $socket  = socket_create(AF_INET, SOCK_RAW, 1);
    socket_set_option($socket, SOL_SOCKET, SO_RCVTIMEO, array('sec' => $timeout, 'usec' => 0));
    socket_connect($socket, $host, null);
    $ts = microtime(true);
    socket_send($socket, $package, strLen($package), 0);
    if (socket_read($socket, 255)) {
        $result = microtime(true) - $ts;
    } else {
        $result = false;
    }
    socket_close($socket);
    return $result;
}

Answer 3

Test different ports:

$wait = 1; // wait Timeout In Seconds
$host = 'example.com';
$ports = [
    'http'  => 80,
    'https' => 443,
    'ftp'   => 21,
];

foreach ($ports as $key => $port) {
    $fp = @fsockopen($host, $port, $errCode, $errStr, $wait);
    echo "Ping $host:$port ($key) ==> ";
    if ($fp) {
        echo 'SUCCESS';
        fclose($fp);
    } else {
        echo "ERROR: $errCode - $errStr";
    }
    echo PHP_EOL;
}


// Ping example.com:80 (http) ==> SUCCESS
// Ping example.com:443 (https) ==> SUCCESS
// Ping example.com:21 (ftp) ==> ERROR: 110 - Connection timed out

Answer 4

function ping($ip){
    $output = shell_exec("ping $ip");
    var_dump($output);
}
ping('127.0.0.1');

UPDATE: If you pass an hardcoded IP (like in this example and most of the real-case scenarios), this function can be enough.

But since some users seem to be very concerned about safety, please remind to never pass user generated inputs to the shell_exec function: If the IP comes from an untrusted source, at least check it with a filter before using it.

Answer 5

Try this :

echo exec('ping -n 1 -w 1 72.10.169.28');

Answer 6

You can use exec function

 exec("ping ".$ip);

here an example

Answer 7

socket_create needs to be run as root on a UNIX system with;

$socket = socket_create(AF_UNIX, SOCK_STREAM, 0);

Answer 8

You don't need any exec or shell_exec hacks to do that, it is possible to do it in PHP. The book 'You want to do WHAT with PHP?' by Kevin Schroeder, show's how.

It uses sockets and the pack() function which lets you read and write binary protocols. What you need to do is to create an ICMP packet, which you can do by using the 'CCnnnA*' format to create your packet.

Answer 9

If you want to send ICMP packets in php you can take a look at this Native-PHP ICMP ping implementation, but I didn't test it.

EDIT:

Maybe the site was hacked because it seems that the files got deleted, there is copy in archive.org but you can't download the tar ball file, there are no contact email only contact form, but this will not work at archive.org, we can only wait until the owner will notice that sit is down.