This quick free lesson in PowerShell teaches you how to use the ping class to get a list of offline computers.  It is fast and easy, and the results are much easier to work with than using ping.exe.

Hey. This post is from 2010. When it was written there was no “Test-NetConnection” cmdlet. Things are even easier now.

Just use Test-NetConnection instead of the .Net Ping Class.

Using the .Net Ping Class

PowerShell is built for speed, and it leverages the .Net framework to make this happen.

To check the computers status, a Ping request is sent to each computer in a list.

To start pinging, an object of the Ping class is instantiated:

$ping = new-object system.net.networkinformation.ping

Easy, right?

This avoids having to use the sloppy mess of processing through the text returned by ping.exe.

What is the difference?

By using a .Net object for the ping results, we can still use the object that is returned.  We can save the objects themselves and reference them back later.  The beauty of PowerShell.  The Power.  We want (and get) much more information.  The results of

ping 192.168.1.1

is a wall of text (an array of 11 strings, actually,) while the result of

$ping.send(“192.168.1.1”)

Is a .Net object of the “system.net.networkinformation.pingreply” class.  A pingreply has a property (named ‘status’) that tells us if the ping was successful or not; the address of the ping; and the miliseconds that it takes to get the reply.

To get results that are usable, keep your ping replies in a variable of results, like this:

$pingreturns = $ping.send(“192.168.1.1”)

Alright, we’ve got the base now for finding out if the computer is reachable.

Get Your Computer List Ready

The list of computers we want to ping.  You don’t have to limit your list to only computers. If the network device has Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) available (most do) and turned on (depends), it will return pings when they are received. You could ping network printers, or routers, for example.

Here are some examples of loading the ping list:

Get Computer List From Textfile

If you have several computers that you want to check frequently, add them to a text file so it’s easy to save, and easy to update the file instead of modifying the script.

“computer1”,”computer2”,”192.168.1.100”,”192.168.1.1” | out-file c:\users\public\documents\pinglist.txt

Now you’ve got a text file.  Quake with fear, bitches!  Note the use of hostnames and IP Addresses.  It’s fine to do that, you can mix and match.  That list is 4 computers, not a collection of 2 computers listed by hostname and IP.

Update the list of computers as needed.

To load the list of computers:

$complist = gc c:\users\public\documents\pinglist.txt

Get Computer List Manually

$complist = “computer1”, “computer2”

Easy, simple, and easy.  To change the list, you’d change it in the script itself.

Get Computer List From Other Parts Of The Script

$servers = get-qadcomputer –service domain.com *serv*
$complist = $servers | select name

This seems normal, but it’s actually different, because you’re saving a list of objects into $complist, instead of a list of strings.  Here’s the difference

PS C:\ScriptGenius> $stringlist = "Computer1", "Computer2"
PS C:\ScriptGenius> $stringlist[0]
Computer1
PS C:\ScriptGenius> $stringlist[0].gettype()

IsPublic IsSerial Name                                     BaseType
-------- -------- ----                                     --------
True     True     String                                   System.Object

Compare that to the item in the object list

PS C:\ScriptGenius> $objectlist = get-qadcomputer *work* | select name
PS C:\ScriptGenius> $objectlist[0]

Name
----
SOFTGRIDWORK2

PS C:\ScriptGenius> $objectlist[0].gettype()

IsPublic IsSerial Name                                     BaseType
-------- -------- ----                                     --------
True     False    PSCustomObject                           System.Object

While the two seem at first to be the same:

$ping.send($stringlist[0])

Works.

$ping.send($objectlist[0])

Does not, but it is at least salvageable.  To make that ping work,  the name property of the psCustomObject (the computer account returned by get-qadcomputer) must be referenced.

$ping.send($objectlist[0].name)

Works.

Get Computer List From an IP Range

This will do an IP sweep for a subnet, pinging along the way.

1..254 | % {$ping.send(“192.168.1.$_”) | select address, status}

Putting it All Together

Now that we’ve seen the pieces, here’s how it all works together.

$computers = get-content C:\scriptgenius\computers.txt
$ping = new-object system.net.networkinformation.ping

$pingreturns = @()

foreach ($entry in $computers) {
$pingreturns += $ping.send($entry)
}

An array is used here to collect multiple ping results.  When completed, this can be used like this.

$pingreturns[4].status

or

$pingreturns | ? {$_.status –ne “success”} | select address

Instead of piping that to “select address” we could just as easily take action on those failed IP addresses.  Like sending the list of offline computers to the administrative team or on-call person via email.