How to ping an IP Address in golang

Question

How can you ping an IP address from a golang application? The ultimate goal is to check if a server is online.

Does go have a way in the standard library to implement a network ping?

Answer 1

As @desaipath mentions, there is no way to do this in the standard library. However, you do not need to write the code for yourself - it has already been done:

https://github.com/tatsushid/go-fastping

Note, sending ICMP packets requires root privileges

Answer 2

I needed the same thing as you and I've made a workaround (with exec.Command) for my Raspberry Pi to check if servers are online. Here is the experimental code

out, _ := exec.Command("ping", "192.168.0.111", "-c 5", "-i 3", "-w 10").Output()
if strings.Contains(string(out), "Destination Host Unreachable") {
    fmt.Println("TANGO DOWN")
} else {
    fmt.Println("IT'S ALIVEEE")
}