How to Grab IP address from ping in Python

Question

I am currently using python 2.7 and will need to ping windows and linux.

I want to create a function that will return the IP address from a ping within a python script. I currently have this function

def ping(host):
    """
    Returns True if host responds to a ping request
    """
    import subprocess, platform

    # Ping parameters as function of OS
    ping_str = "-n 1" if  platform.system().lower()=="windows" else "-c 1"
    args = "ping " + " " + ping_str + " " + host
    need_sh = False if  platform.system().lower()=="windows" else True

    # Ping
    return subprocess.call(args, shell=need_sh) == 0

Right now it just returns true or false but is there a way I can run ping(google.com) and have it return 216.58.217.206. I have a list of servers and IPs and I need to make sure that the IP addresses match the FQDN.

Answer 1

You can use the socket to get the IP of the host.

import socket
print(socket.gethostbyname('www.example.com'))

Answer 2

Not sure how no-one has tried this method yet (for windows anyways)!

Use a WMI query of W32_PingStatus

With this method we return an object full of goodies

import wmi


# new WMI object
c = wmi.WMI()

# here is where the ping actually is triggered
x = c.Win32_PingStatus(Address='google.com')

# how big is this thing? - 1 element
print 'length x: ' ,len(x)


#lets look at the object 'WMI Object:\n'
print x


#print out the whole returned object
# only x[0] element has values in it
print '\nPrint Whole Object - can directly reference the field names:\n'
for i in x:
    print i



#just a single field in the object - Method 1
print 'Method 1 ( i is actually x[0] ) :'
for i in x:
    print 'Response:\t', i.ResponseTime, 'ms'
    print 'TTL:\t', i.TimeToLive


#or better yet directly access the field you want
print '\npinged ', x[0].ProtocolAddress, ' and got reply in ', x[0].ResponseTime, 'ms'

Screenshot of output: