HiPing: The Complete Beginner’s Guide

How to Implement HiPing: Step-by-Step Tutorial

What is HiPing

HiPing is a hypothetical enhanced ping utility that combines traditional ICMP echo with additional telemetry (latency jitter, packet reordering, TCP/UDP probes, and optional application-layer checks) to give a fuller picture of network health.

Prerequisites

• A machine with administrative/root access.
• Basic command-line proficiency (Linux/macOS/Windows PowerShell).
• Python 3.8+ installed (we’ll use Python for the example implementation).
• Optional: scapy library for low-level packet handling.

Overview of this implementation

We’ll build a simple HiPing tool in Python that:

1. Sends ICMP echo requests (like ping).
2. Measures per-packet latency and jitter.
3. Sends a TCP SYN probe to a specified port.
4. Logs results and computes summary statistics.

Step 1 — Environment setup

1. Install required packages:

bash
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python -m pip install scapy rich 

2. On Linux/macOS, run with sudo to allow raw sockets:

bash
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sudo python hiping.py <target> –count 5 –tcp-port 80

On Windows, run PowerShell as Administrator.

Step 2 — Core code

Save the following as hiping.py:

python
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#!/usr/bin/env python3
import argparse import time import socket import statistics from scapy.all import ICMP, IP, sr1, TCP, sr 
def icmp_probe(target, timeout=2):
pkt = IP(dst=target)/ICMP()
    start = time.time()
    reply = sr1(pkt, timeout=timeout, verbose=0)
    elapsed = None
    if reply is not None:
        elapsed = (time.time() - start)  1000.0
    return elapsed 
def tcp_syn_probe(target, port=80, timeout=2):
    sock = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
    sock.settimeout(timeout)
    start = time.time()
    try:
        sock.connect((target, port))
        sock.close()
        return (time.time() - start)  1000.0, True
    except Exception:
        return None, False

def hiping(target, count=5, tcp_port=80):
    rtts = []
    successes = 0
    for i in range(count):
        rtt = icmp_probe(target)
        if rtt is not None:
            rtts.append(rtt)
            successes += 1
            print(f”ICMP reply from {target}: time={rtt:.2f} ms”)
        else:
            print(f”ICMP timeout for attempt {i+1}“)
        tcp_rtt, tcp_up = tcp_syn_probe(target, tcp_port)
        if tcp_up:
            print(f”TCP port {tcp_port} open: connect time={tcp_rtt:.2f} ms”)
        else:
            print(f”TCP port {tcp_port} closed or filtered”)
        time.sleep(1)

    print_summary(target, rtts, successes, count)

def print_summary(target, rtts, successes, count):
    print(” — HiPing summary —”)
    print(f”Target: {target}“)
    print(f”Sent: {count}, Received: {successes}, Loss: {((count-successes)/count)*100:.1f}%”)
    if rtts:
        print(f”Min: {min(rtts):.2f} ms, Max: {max(rtts):.2f} ms, Avg: {statistics.mean(rtts):.2f} ms”)
        if len(rtts) >= 2:
            diffs = [abs(rtts[i]-rtts[i-1]) for i in range(1,len(rtts))]
            print(f”Jitter (avg diff): {statistics.mean(diffs):.2f} ms”)
    else:
        print(“No ICMP replies to compute stats.”)

if name == “main”:
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description=“HiPing - enhanced ping”)
    parser.add_argument(“target”, help=“Target hostname or IP”)
    parser.add_argument(”–count”, type=int, default=5, help=“Number of probes”)
    parser.add_argument(”–tcp-port”, type=int, default=80, help=“TCP port for SYN probe”)
    args = parser.parse_args()
    hiping(args.target, args.count, args.tcp_port)

Step 3 — Run and interpret results

• Run: sudo python hiping.py example.com –count 5 –tcp-port 80
• Interpret:
  • Per-probe lines show ICMP RTTs and TCP connect success.
  • Summary shows packet loss, min/max/avg RTT and jitter.

Step 4 — Extensions and best practices

• Add UDP probes or application-layer HTTP GET for service checks.
• Use parallel probes for higher-frequency measurement (threading/asyncio).
• Respect rate limits and obtain permission when probing remote systems.
• Log results in JSON for integration with monitoring systems.

Troubleshooting

• If ICMP always times out, check firewall/host settings.
• On Windows, scapy raw sockets may require npcap/winpcap.
• For accurate timing, run on lightly loaded systems.

This implementation is a minimal, educational HiPing prototype — adapt for production with error handling, rate control, and secure practices.