How to Batch Ping Hundreds of Hosts with Python: A Complete Guide

The ping command is a fundamental tool for network troubleshooting, but manually pinging dozens or hundreds of devices is impractical. This guide shows how to automate bulk ping testing with Python.

Below is a self‑contained Python script that defines a Pinger class, computes ICMP checksums, sends echo requests, receives replies, and measures round‑trip time. It also includes a loop that scans an IP range (e.g., 192.168.242.1‑254) and prints the latency of each responsive host.

#!/usr/bin/python3
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

import os
import argparse
import socket
import struct
import select
import time

ICMP_ECHO_REQUEST = 8  # Platform specific
DEFAULT_TIMEOUT = 0.1
DEFAULT_COUNT = 4

class Pinger(object):
    """ Pings to a host -- the Pythonic way """

    def __init__(self, target_host, count=DEFAULT_COUNT, timeout=DEFAULT_TIMEOUT):
        self.target_host = target_host
        self.count = count
        self.timeout = timeout

    def do_checksum(self, source_string):
        """  Verify the packet integrity """
        sum = 0
        max_count = (len(source_string)/2)*2
        count = 0
        while count < max_count:
            val = source_string[count + 1]*256 + source_string[count]
            sum = sum + val
            sum = sum & 0xffffffff
            count = count + 2
        if max_count < len(source_string):
            sum = sum + ord(source_string[len(source_string) - 1])
            sum = sum & 0xffffffff
        sum = (sum >> 16)  +  (sum & 0xffff)
        sum = sum + (sum >> 16)
        answer = ~sum
        answer = answer & 0xffff
        answer = answer >> 8 | (answer << 8 & 0xff00)
        return answer

    def receive_pong(self, sock, ID, timeout):
        """Receive ping from the socket."""
        time_remaining = timeout
        while True:
            start_time = time.time()
            readable = select.select([sock], [], [], time_remaining)
            time_spent = (time.time() - start_time)
            if readable[0] == []:
                return
            time_received = time.time()
            recv_packet, addr = sock.recvfrom(1024)
            icmp_header = recv_packet[20:28]
            type, code, checksum, packet_ID, sequence = struct.unpack("bbHHh", icmp_header)
            if packet_ID == ID:
                bytes_In_double = struct.calcsize("d")
                time_sent = struct.unpack("d", recv_packet[28:28 + bytes_In_double])[0]
                return time_received - time_sent
            time_remaining = time_remaining - time_spent
            if time_remaining <= 0:
                return

    def send_ping(self, sock,  ID):
        """Send ping to the target host"""
        target_addr  =  socket.gethostbyname(self.target_host)
        my_checksum = 0
        header = struct.pack("bbHHh", ICMP_ECHO_REQUEST, 0, my_checksum, ID, 1)
        bytes_In_double = struct.calcsize("d")
        data = (192 - bytes_In_double) * "Q"
        data = struct.pack("d", time.time()) + bytes(data.encode('utf-8'))
        my_checksum = self.do_checksum(header + data)
        header = struct.pack(
          "bbHHh", ICMP_ECHO_REQUEST, 0, socket.htons(my_checksum), ID, 1
        )
        packet = header + data
        sock.sendto(packet, (target_addr, 1))

    def ping_once(self):
        """Returns the delay (in seconds) or none on timeout."""
        icmp = socket.getprotobyname("icmp")
        try:
            sock = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_RAW, icmp)
        except socket.error as e:
            if e.errno == 1:
                e.msg += "ICMP messages can only be sent from root user processes"
                raise socket.error(e.msg)
        except Exception as e:
            print("Exception: %s" % (e))
        my_ID = os.getpid() & 0xFFFF
        self.send_ping(sock, my_ID)
        delay = self.receive_pong(sock, my_ID, self.timeout)
        sock.close()
        return delay

    def ping(self):
        """Run the ping process"""
        for i in range(self.count):
            print("Ping to %s..." % self.target_host,)
            try:
                delay  =  self.ping_once()
            except socket.gaierror as e:
                print("Ping failed. (socket error: '%s')" % e[1])
                break
            if delay  ==  None:
                print("Ping failed. (timeout within %ssec.)" % self.timeout)
            else:
                delay = delay * 1000
                print("Get pong in %0.4fms" % delay)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    alive = []
    host_prefix = '192.168.242.'
    for i in range(1, 255):
        host = host_prefix + str(i)
        pinger = Pinger(target_host=host)
        delay = pinger.ping_once()
        if delay == None:
            print("Ping %s 失败，超时2秒" % host)
        else:
            print("ping %s = %s ms" % (host, round(delay * 1000, 4)))
            alive.append(host)

The script prints each host’s latency or a timeout message, allowing you to quickly identify which devices are reachable in a large network segment.