Get list of devices on LAN in C

Question

I'd like to get a list of available devices (their IP address or hostname should be fine) connected to my local network. I've got some examples in C#, but I couldn't find any sample using C/C++. I'm familiar with the BSD socket API, just to clarify.

I have a "stub" kind of idea: maybe I should determine the range of the IP addresses that the devices on my LAN can potentially belong to, and then determine if they e. g. respond to PING, or something like that. How could I achieve these?

I want my application to run on Linux and iOS. That's why I'd prefer BSD sockets, or at a maximum, Foundation/GNUstep (although they are written in Objective-C).

Answer 1

You can also e.g. send an ICMP echo request packet to 224.0.0.1. This is a special all-nodes multicast address every node should respond to (except if a firewall rule or network policy setting prevents it).