I am currently trying to write a program that will read a text file containing a list of IP-Addresses and ping each IP-Addresses respectively. If the host responds to the ping then the host's IP-Address will be copied to a seconded file specified by the user. Unfourtantly this is the first time I have used C's socket library and I cannot find a good tutorial about how to ping using C. From what I understand of the couple tutorials I did find. I need to included a ICMP header, which is a struct containg the ICMP type, code, and checksum, in a IP datagram. But I have no idea how to go about doing so, should I declare the struct myself or is it declared in a header file? I am assuming that it is in a header but the tutorials contradicted each other about exactly where it is declared. I tired including icmp.h and netinet/icmp.h but my compiler complained that they don't exist so I created my own struct.
struct echo_request
{
char type; // Type
char code; // Code
short checksum; // Checksum
short id; // Identification
short seq; // Sequence
int time; // Time
char data[16]; // Data
};
I thought that I might be able to get away with it but I wasn't even able to compile my program because my compiler says that in_cksum()(checksum generator) is undefined.
To sum up my questions, what header files should I include, how do I create a ping packet, am I using the correct checksum generator function, should a ping be directed to port 80, and should the socket I use be RAW or DGRAM?
This is what I have so far, please note that I have purposely left out error checking.
int socket_descriptor = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_RAW, IPPROTO_ICMP);
struct sockaddr_in address; //Initialize address struct
memset(&address, 0, sizeof(address)); //Clear address struct
//Declare address
address.sin_family = AF_INET;
address.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr(ipaddress);
address.sin_port = htons(80);
//Bind socket to address
bind(socket_descriptor, (struct sockaddr *)&address, sizeof(address));
//Create packet
struct echo_request packet; //See above for declaration of struct
memset(packet.data, 1, 16);
packet.type = 8; //ECHO_REQUEST
packet.code = 0;
packet.time = gettime();
packet.checksum = 0;
packet.checksum = in_cksum(packet, sizeof(packet));
If you don't have to implement the ping from scratch and you want only Windows solution, I'd second Anton's suggestion for IcmpSendEcho. If you have to implement ping, look at how POCO ICMP package is implemented. It is portable code and it runs fine on Windows.
In regards to the specific questions, here are the answers:
what header files should I include
#include <winsock2.h>
how do I create a ping packet
See ICMPv4PacketImpl::initPacket() for an example of IPv4 packet.
am I using the correct checksum generator function
Not for windows. See ICMPPacketImpl::checksum() for an example of checksum function.
should a ping be directed to port 80
No. There's no such thing as port when it comes to ICMP. See Does ICMP use a specific port?
should the socket I use be RAW or DGRAM
It should be RAW.