PING

PING

Windows supports an Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) to determine whether or not a particular host is available.
ICMP is a network layer protocol that delivers flow control, error messages, routing, and other data between Internet hosts. ICMP is primarily used by application developers for a network ping.

A ping is the process of sending an echo message to an IP address and reading the reply to verify a connection between TCP/IP hosts. If you are writing new application you will be better to use the Winsock 2 raw sockets support, implemented in Indy, for example.

Please note, however, that for Windows NT and Windows 2000 implementations, Raw Sockets are subject to security checks and are accessible only to members of the administrator's group. Icmp.dll provides functionality that allows developers to write Internet ping applications on Windows systems without Winsock 2 support.
Note that the Winsock 1.1 WSAStartup function must be called prior to using the functions exposed by ICMP.DLL. If you do not do this, the first call to IcmpSendEcho will fail with error 10091 (WSASYSNOTREADY).

Below you can find the Ping unit's source code. Here are two example's of usage.

1) Example 1 (code snippet):

uses Ping;
...
const ADP_IP = '208.185.127.40'; (* http://delphi.about.com *)
begin
 If  Ping.Ping(ADP_IP) then 
   ShowMessage('About Delphi Programming reachable!');
end;

2) Here's another, console mode Delphi program, that uses the Ping unit .. download.

And, the Ping unit's source:

unit Ping;

interface
uses
  Windows, SysUtils, Classes;

type
  TSunB = packed record
    s_b1, s_b2, s_b3, s_b4: byte;
  end;

  TSunW = packed record
    s_w1, s_w2: word;
  end;

  PIPAddr = ^TIPAddr;
  TIPAddr = record
    case integer of
      0: (S_un_b: TSunB);
      1: (S_un_w: TSunW);
      2: (S_addr: longword);
  end;

 IPAddr = TIPAddr;

function IcmpCreateFile : THandle; stdcall; external 'icmp.dll';
function IcmpCloseHandle (icmpHandle : THandle) : boolean; 
            stdcall; external 'icmp.dll'
function IcmpSendEcho 
   (IcmpHandle : THandle; DestinationAddress : IPAddr;
    RequestData : Pointer; RequestSize : Smallint;
    RequestOptions : pointer;
    ReplyBuffer : Pointer;
    ReplySize : DWORD;
    Timeout : DWORD) : DWORD; stdcall; external 'icmp.dll';


function Ping(InetAddress : string) : boolean;

implementation

uses
  WinSock;

function Fetch(var AInput: string; 
                      const ADelim: string = ' '; 
                      const ADelete: Boolean = true)
 : string;
var
  iPos: Integer;
begin
  if ADelim = #0 then begin
    // AnsiPos does not work with #0
    iPos := Pos(ADelim, AInput);
  end else begin
    iPos := Pos(ADelim, AInput);
  end;
  if iPos = 0 then begin
    Result := AInput;
    if ADelete then begin
      AInput := '';
    end;
  end else begin
    result := Copy(AInput, 1, iPos - 1);
    if ADelete then begin
      Delete(AInput, 1, iPos + Length(ADelim) - 1);
    end;
  end;
end;

procedure TranslateStringToTInAddr(AIP: string; var AInAddr);
var
  phe: PHostEnt;
  pac: PChar;
  GInitData: TWSAData;
begin
  WSAStartup($101, GInitData);
  try
    phe := GetHostByName(PChar(AIP));
    if Assigned(phe) then
    begin
      pac := phe^.h_addr_list^;
      if Assigned(pac) then
      begin
        with TIPAddr(AInAddr).S_un_b do begin
          s_b1 := Byte(pac[0]);
          s_b2 := Byte(pac[1]);
          s_b3 := Byte(pac[2]);
          s_b4 := Byte(pac[3]);
        end;
      end
      else
      begin
        raise Exception.Create('Error getting IP from HostName');
      end;
    end
    else
    begin
      raise Exception.Create('Error getting HostName');
    end;
  except
    FillChar(AInAddr, SizeOf(AInAddr), #0);
  end;
  WSACleanup;
end;

function Ping(InetAddress : string) : boolean;
var
 Handle : THandle;
 InAddr : IPAddr;
 DW : DWORD;
 rep : array[1..128] of byte;
begin
  result := false;
  Handle := IcmpCreateFile;
  if Handle = INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE then
   Exit;
  TranslateStringToTInAddr(InetAddress, InAddr);
  DW := IcmpSendEcho(Handle, InAddr, nil, 0, nil, @rep, 128, 0);
  Result := (DW <> 0);
  IcmpCloseHandle(Handle);
end;

end.