Ping stands for Packet InterNet Groper. It is a computer network administration software utility used to test the reachability of a host on an Internet Protocol (IP) network. It measures the round-trip time for messages sent from the originating host to a destination computer that are echoed back to the source. The name comes from active sonar terminology that sends a pulse of sound and listens for the echo to detect objects under water, although it is sometimes interpreted as a backronym to packet Internet groper.
ft_ping is a recreation of the ping command. It sends ICMP ECHO request packets to network hosts and listens for ICMP ECHO_REPLY responses. It measures the round-trip time and packet loss statistics.
For anyone who had to work in debugging network issues, given them simple or as complex as the internet, this tool is a must have. As almost every machine is capable of sending and receiving ICMP packets, we may use this to test the reachability of a host on an IP network, and how long it takes to get there.
This project requires GNU Make and clang to compile. Using C99 won't compile the binary, as we are using some new netowrk functions to provide the DNS resolution (namely getaddrinfo). To compile, run make or make all from the repository root directory.
git clone
cd ft_ping
make all
Given no issue with the compilation, the binary ft_ping will be created at the root of the repository, alongside the object files in the build/ directory.
As we need to open a raw socket to send and receive ICMP packets, ft_ping must be run as root. The program takes a single argument, the destination to ping, which can be either an IP address or a hostname. The program will resolve the hostname to an IP address using the getaddrinfo function.
# ./ft_ping [-?] [-v] destination
You may use the -? flag to display the help message, and the -v flag to enable verbose mode. Verbose mode will display the identifier of the ICMP packet, along with some additional information in case of errors.