A simple but powerful ICMP echo (ping) library for Go, inspired by go-fastping.

Here is a very simple example that sends and receives three packets:

pinger, err := ping.NewPinger("www.google.com")
if err != nil {
	panic(err)
}
pinger.Count = 3
err = pinger.Run() // Blocks until finished.
if err != nil {
	panic(err)
}
stats := pinger.Statistics() // get send/receive/duplicate/rtt stats

Here is an example that emulates the traditional UNIX ping command:

pinger, err := ping.NewPinger("www.google.com")
if err != nil {
	panic(err)
}

// Listen for Ctrl-C.
c := make(chan os.Signal, 1)
signal.Notify(c, os.Interrupt)
go func() {
	for _ = range c {
		pinger.Stop()
	}
}()

pinger.OnRecv = func(pkt *ping.Packet) {
	fmt.Printf("%d bytes from %s: icmp_seq=%d time=%v\n",
		pkt.Nbytes, pkt.IPAddr, pkt.Seq, pkt.Rtt)
}

pinger.OnDuplicateRecv = func(pkt *ping.Packet) {
	fmt.Printf("%d bytes from %s: icmp_seq=%d time=%v ttl=%v (DUP!)\n",
		pkt.Nbytes, pkt.IPAddr, pkt.Seq, pkt.Rtt, pkt.Ttl)
}

pinger.OnTimeout = func(seq int) {
	fmt.Printf("Request timeout for icmp_seq %v\n", seq)
}

pinger.OnFinish = func(stats *ping.Statistics) {
	fmt.Printf("\n--- %s ping statistics ---\n", stats.Addr)
	fmt.Printf("%d packets transmitted, %d packets received, %v%% packet loss\n",
		stats.PacketsSent, stats.PacketsRecv, stats.PacketLoss)
	fmt.Printf("round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = %v/%v/%v/%v\n",
		stats.MinRtt, stats.AvgRtt, stats.MaxRtt, stats.StdDevRtt)
}

fmt.Printf("PING %s (%s):\n", pinger.Addr(), pinger.IPAddr())
err = pinger.Run()
if err != nil {
	panic(err)
}

It sends ICMP Echo Request packet(s) and waits for an Echo Reply in response. If it receives a response, it calls the OnRecv callback unless a packet with that sequence number has already been received, in which case it calls the OnDuplicateRecv callback. When it's finished, it calls the OnFinish callback.

For a full ping example, see cmd/ping/ping.go.

go get -u github.com/go-ping/ping

To install the native Go ping executable:

go get -u github.com/go-ping/ping/...
$GOPATH/bin/ping

This library attempts to send an "unprivileged" ping via UDP. On Linux, this must be enabled with the following sysctl command:

sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.ping_group_range="0 2147483647"

If you do not wish to do this, you can call pinger.SetPrivileged(true) in your code and then use setcap on your binary to allow it to bind to raw sockets (or just run it as root):

setcap cap_net_raw=+ep /path/to/your/compiled/binary

See this blog and the Go x/net/icmp package for more details.

You must use pinger.SetPrivileged(true), otherwise you will receive the following error:

socket: The requested protocol has not been configured into the system, or no implementation for it exists.

Despite the method name, this should work without the need to elevate privileges and has been tested on Windows 10. Please note that accessing packet TTL values is not supported due to limitations in the Go x/net/ipv4 and x/net/ipv6 packages.

There is no support for Plan 9. This is because the entire x/net/ipv4 and x/net/ipv6 packages are not implemented by the Go programming language.

This repo was originally in the personal account of sparrc, but is now maintained by the go-ping organization.

For support and help, you usually find us in the #go-ping channel of Gophers Slack. See https://invite.slack.golangbridge.org/ for an invite to the Gophers Slack org.

Refer to CONTRIBUTING.md