fping-rust

fping-rust is an attempt to port the fping program to Rust. It includes some features not found in the original fping, while others are missing.

This version is licensed under the GPL

Original

Original fping is a program to send ICMP echo probes to network hosts, similar to ping, but much better performing when pinging multiple hosts. fping has a long long story: Roland Schemers did publish a first version of it in 1992 and it has established itself since then as a standard tool.

Installation

Installation is quite simple and can be done directly from crates.io

cargo install fping-rust

Make fping either setuid, or, if under Linux

sudo setcap cap_net_raw,cap_net_admin+ep fping`

If you can't run fping as root or can't use the cap_net_raw capability, you can also run fping in unprivileged mode. This works on MacOS and also on Linux, provided that your GID is included in the range defined in /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ping_group_range. This is particularly useful for running fping-rust in rootless / unprivileged containers.

echo "net.ipv4.ping_group_range = 0 2147483647" >> /etc/sysctl.d/local.conf

Development

Build the project with Cargo in debug mode

make build

Run the tests using Cargo

make test

Build a release version of the project using Cargo

make build-release

Alternatively: Builds and packages the binaries

make package

Cleans up build artifacts

make clean

Usage

Fast ping to multiple hosts

Usage: fping [OPTIONS] [TARGETS]...

Arguments:
  [TARGETS]...  Target hosts

Options:
  -c, --count <N>          Count mode: send N pings to each target
  -C, --vcount <N>         Same as -c but verbose output (all RTTs)
  -l, --loop               Loop mode: send pings forever
  -i, --interval <MSEC>    Interval between packets in ms (default: 10) [default: 10]
  -p, --period <MSEC>      Per-host interval in ms (default: 1000) [default: 1000]
  -t, --timeout <MSEC>     Timeout in ms (default: 500) [default: 500]
  -r, --retry <RETRY>      Number of retries (default: 3) [default: 3]
  -B, --backoff <BACKOFF>  Exponential backoff factor (default: 1.5) [default: 1.5]
  -b, --size <BYTES>       Ping data size in bytes (default: 56) [default: 56]
  -f, --file <FILE>        Read hosts from file (- = stdin)
  -a, --alive              Show only alive hosts
  -u, --unreach            Show only unreachable hosts
  -q, --quiet              Quiet: don't show per-ping results
  -s, --stats              Print final stats
  -e, --elapsed            Show elapsed time on received packets
  -A, --addr               Show targets by address
  -D, --timestamp          Timestamp before each line
  -J, --json               JSON output (requires -c, -C or -l)
  -4, --ipv4               Use IPv4 only
  -6, --ipv6               Use IPv6 only
      --report-all-rtts    Show all individual RTTs
  -x, --reachable <N>      Minimum number of reachable hosts to be considered success
  -S, --source <SOURCE>    Source address for outgoing pings
      --oiface <IFACE>     Bind outgoing packets to this network interface (e.g. eth0)
      --tui                Enable interactive TUI mode (ncurses)
  -h, --help               Print help
  -V, --version            Print version

Test

Run all tests

cargo test

Run special test

cargo test --test args_tests
cargo test --test dns_tests
cargo test --test output_tests
cargo test --test socket_tests
cargo test --test types_tests

Run specific test by name

cargo test --test types_tests loss_pct_50

Overview of the test files

File	Description	root required
args_tests.rs	CLI argument parsing, default values	No
dns_tests.rs	Hostname resolution, IP filtering	No*
output_tests.rs	sprint_tm, max_host_len	No
socket_tests.rs	Packet construction, checksum, ID/Seq encoding	No
types_tests.rs	HostEntry logic, statistics	No

* Network access is required for DNS resolution (localhost is always available).

Reference

• https://github.com/schweikert/fping