Code Tracer and Net Pinger

Introduction

This article demonstrates the usage of Ping class located in the System.Net.NetworkInformation namespace in different scenarios such as host monitoring, tracing routes and scanning range of IP addresses. In addition to these network tools, the application also tracks statistics about tracked hosts and allows the user to display those statistics as graphs.

Ping Class

The most common way to ping another host is to send ICMP [RFC792] echo message and then wait for the response from the targeted host. As it was stated at the beginning of the article, you can use Ping class available in .NET Framework that wraps this type of ICMP message to make your life easier and save yourself from implementing the protocol by yourself.
Ping class goes together with some other classes and data types such as PingOptions and PingReply classes and IPStatus enumeration. The heart of the class is the Send method [and SendAsync] that sends echo message and waits for the response. The method has several overloads, but all of them return an instance of the PingReply class which contains results of echo request [Status property] and response time [RoundtripTime]. Here are a few examples:

Ping pinger = new Ping();

// first parameter is TTL and second sets flag in IP header to 
// tell routers not to fragment the datagram
PingReply reply = PingOptions pingerOptions = new PingOptions(127, false); 

// specify computer by its name
PingReply reply = pinger.Send("localhost");

// with timeout specified
PingReply reply = pinger.Send("localhost", 1000); 

// specify computer by its IP address
PingReply reply = pinger.Send(new IPAddress(new byte[] { 127, 0, 0, 1 }));

// specify computer by its name, sets timeout, uses user defined buffer and 
// options
PingReply reply = pinger.Send(new IPAddress(new byte[] { 127, 0, 0, 1 }),
    1000, buffer, pingerOptions);

But it is only one half of the story. Based on this simple method, we need to provide some meaningful and useful statistical information.

IPRouteTracer Class

Traceroute is implemented by IPRouteTracer class and each hop [router] by IPRouteHop class.
Hop class contains IP address of the router, its ordinal number in the path and response times of each ping request.
IPRouteTracer's constructors accept IP address of the destination host and various parameters: request timeout period, number of pings and number of retries for each hop. In each tracer, try sends specified number of ping request before it starts another try or progresses to the next hop. List of detected hops is exposed by Route property.

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Code Tracer and Net Pinger