ping with python?

[lavinog]

I am working on a tracker to track computers on a network. In the past I used nmap to create a list of computers online. Now we have some vista computers that respond to ping requests, but are not detected by nmap unless I use -PE and sudo.

As a workaround I am using the ping command (which doesn't require root.)
Is there a python way to ping computers without needing to be root?

Would I be better off using the ping command instead?

[ghostdog74]

Would I be better off using the ping command instead?
yes, why not. provided icmp is not blocked.

[unutbu]

If you'd like to do this from within python, check out the python-scapy package:


Description: Packet generator/sniffer and network scanner/discovery
Scapy is a powerful interactive packet manipulation tool, packet
generator, network scanner, network discovery, packet sniffer, etc. It
can for the moment replace hping, 85% of nmap, arpspoof, arp-sk, arping,
tcpdump, tethereal, p0f, ....
.
In scapy you define a set of packets, then it sends them, receives
answers, matches requests with answers and returns a list of packet couples
(request, answer) and a list of unmatched packets. This has the big advantage
over tools like nmap or hping that an answer is not reduced to
(open/closed/filtered), but is the whole packet.
.
Homepage: http://www.secdev.org/projects/scapy/

And for a demo:
http://www.secdev.org/projects/scapy/demo.html

PS: The above was found with this command:

apt-cache search network | awk '/^python/{print $1}' | while read pkg; do apt-cache show "$pkg"; done

[juancarlospaco]

like a Pyng :)
just kidding i can't resist, sorry.