Req #52071 [Opn->Wfx]: RFE: ping

Edit report at http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=52071&edit=1 ID: 52071 Updated by: rasmus@php.net Reported by: php at richardneill dot org Summary: RFE: ping -Status: Open +Status: Wont fix Type: Feature/Change Request Package: Network related Operating System: Linux PHP Version: Irrelevant New Comment: This is not going to work in most PHP environments because doing raw-socket ICMP requests, like ping does requires root access. You will notice that your ping binary is setuid-root on your machine, so unless you are running PHP as root, doing it from within PHP simply won't work. If you do have root access, it isn't that hard to do with a socket_create(AF_INET, SOCK_RAW, getprotobyname('icmp')) call, but since it wouldn't work for most people, I don't see the point in adding it to PHP. Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2010-06-13 02:28:38] php at richardneill dot org Description: ------------ Surprisingly, PHP is missing the ability to ping another host (and check it's alive). So I'd like to make a request to add it. I'd suggest using something like fping rather than standard ping, as this is more script-friendly - for example, fping can be made to return immediately as soon as it discovers that a given host is alive. For example: fping -q -B1 www.php.net I know that there is Net_Ping available via PEAR, but often PEAR extensions aren't available on many hosting environments; likewise it's awkward to package a PHP web-application when the PEAR extension isn't already packaged for the distro. Is ping suficiently fundamental to be considered core? Test script: --------------- This command should either exist in 2 forms, or have several options. Typical use cases are: 1. Is machine X alive (and responding to Pings) 2. Can I do a DNS lookup + route to that machine 3. What is the packet loss fraction. This is easy enough to do by using exec(), but it would be nice to have a native function. Thanks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=52071&edit=1