Android ICMP ping

Question

Is there a way to ping a host (standard Android or via NDK implementation), and get detailed info on the response? (time, ttl, lost packages, etc..) I was thinking of some open source app that has this feature but can't find any...

Thanks

Answer 1

Afaik, sending ICMP ECHO requests needs root (i.e. the app that does it needs to be setuid) - and that's not currently possible in "stock" Android (hell, even the InetAddress#isReachable() method in Android is a joke that doesn't work according to spec).

A very basic example using /usr/bin/ping & Process - reading the ping results, using an AsyncTask:

public class PingActivity extends Activity {
    PingTask mTask;
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);
    }

    @Override
    protected void onResume() {
        super.onResume();
        mTask = new PingTask();
        // Ping the host "android.com"
        mTask.execute("android.com");
    }

    @Override
    protected void onPause() {
        super.onPause();
        mTask.stop();
    }

    class PingTask extends AsyncTask<String, Void, Void> {
        PipedOutputStream mPOut;
        PipedInputStream mPIn;
        LineNumberReader mReader;
        Process mProcess;
        TextView mText = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.text);
        @Override
        protected void onPreExecute() {
            mPOut = new PipedOutputStream();
            try {
                mPIn = new PipedInputStream(mPOut);
                mReader = new LineNumberReader(new InputStreamReader(mPIn));
            } catch (IOException e) {
                cancel(true);
            }

        }

        public void stop() {
            Process p = mProcess;
            if (p != null) {
                p.destroy();
            }
            cancel(true);
        }

        @Override
        protected Void doInBackground(String... params) {
            try {
                mProcess = new ProcessBuilder()
                    .command("/system/bin/ping", params[0])
                    .redirectErrorStream(true)
                    .start();

                try {
                    InputStream in = mProcess.getInputStream();
                    OutputStream out = mProcess.getOutputStream();
                    byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
                    int count;

                    // in -> buffer -> mPOut -> mReader -> 1 line of ping information to parse
                    while ((count = in.read(buffer)) != -1) {
                        mPOut.write(buffer, 0, count);
                        publishProgress();
                    }
                    out.close();
                    in.close();
                    mPOut.close();
                    mPIn.close();
                } finally {
                    mProcess.destroy();
                    mProcess = null;
                }
            } catch (IOException e) {
            }
            return null;
        }
        @Override
        protected void onProgressUpdate(Void... values) {
            try {
                // Is a line ready to read from the "ping" command?
                while (mReader.ready()) {
                    // This just displays the output, you should typically parse it I guess.
                    mText.setText(mReader.readLine());
                }
            } catch (IOException t) {
            }
        }
    }
}

Answer 2

I found a way to execute ping command without root.
Spawns a 'sh' process first, and then execute 'ping' in that shell, the code:

p = new ProcessBuilder("sh").redirectErrorStream(true).start();

DataOutputStream os = new DataOutputStream(p.getOutputStream());
os.writeBytes("ping -c 10 " + host + '\n');
os.flush();

// Close the terminal
os.writeBytes("exit\n");
os.flush();

// read ping replys
BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(p.getInputStream()));
String line;

while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
    System.out.println(line);
}

It works fine on my HTC device with CyanogenMod 7.1.0 (Android 2.3.7)