Building a Simple Network Monitoring Tool with Python and ping3

This article demonstrates how to create a simple network monitoring tool in Python using the ping3 library to send ICMP echo requests and measure latency.

First, install the library with pip install ping3 .

A basic script imports ping3, defines a ping(host) function that calls ping3.ping , handles success, failure, and exceptions, and runs from a main block that prompts for a host address.

The tool can be run via python ping_tool.py , which asks for the target host and displays the result.

Additional examples show how to ping multiple hosts, set timeout and retry count, compute average latency, write results to a file, and calculate packet loss, each with full source code:

import ping3

def ping(host):
    try:
        latency = ping3.ping(host)
        if latency is not None:
            print(f"Ping {host} 成功，延迟：{latency}秒")
        else:
            print(f"Ping {host} 失败")
    except Exception as e:
        print(f"Ping {host} 出现错误：{str(e)}")

def main():
    host = input("请输入目标主机地址：")
    ping(host)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Batch ping example:

import ping3

def ping(hosts):
    for host in hosts:
        try:
            latency = ping3.ping(host)
            if latency is not None:
                print(f"Ping {host} 成功，延迟：{latency}秒")
            else:
                print(f"Ping {host} 失败")
        except Exception as e:
            print(f"Ping {host} 出现错误：{str(e)}")

def main():
    hosts = ['google.com', 'facebook.com', 'youtube.com']
    ping(hosts)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Timeout and retry count example:

import ping3

def ping(host, timeout=1, count=4):
    try:
        latency = ping3.ping(host, timeout=timeout, count=count)
        if latency is not None:
            print(f"Ping {host} 成功，延迟：{latency}秒")
        else:
            print(f"Ping {host} 失败")
    except Exception as e:
        print(f"Ping {host} 出现错误：{str(e)}")

def main():
    host = 'google.com'
    ping(host, timeout=2, count=3)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

File output example:

import ping3

def ping(hosts, output_file):
    with open(output_file, 'w') as file:
        for host in hosts:
            try:
                latency = ping3.ping(host)
                if latency is not None:
                    result = f"Ping {host} 成功，延迟：{latency}秒"
                else:
                    result = f"Ping {host} 失败"
            except Exception as e:
                result = f"Ping {host} 出现错误：{str(e)}"
            print(result)
            file.write(result + '\n')

def main():
    hosts = ['google.com', 'facebook.com', 'youtube.com']
    output_file = 'ping_results.txt'
    ping(hosts, output_file)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Packet‑loss calculation example:

import ping3

def ping(host):
    try:
        packet_loss, latency = ping3.ping(host, timeout=2, count=10, size=56)
        if packet_loss is not None and latency is not None:
            print(f"Ping {host} 成功，丢包率：{packet_loss * 100}% ，平均延迟：{latency}秒")
        else:
            print(f"Ping {host} 失败")
    except Exception as e:
        print(f"Ping {host} 出现错误：{str(e)}")

def main():
    host = 'google.com'
    ping(host)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

These examples illustrate practical usage of ping3 for network connectivity checks and monitoring.