arprequest 0.2a

A class which sends an ARP Request to know if a host is online on local networks

General

ArpRequest is a Python module designed to make an ARP gratuitous request to know if a host is online. It acts on OSI model’s level 2 unlike icmp echo (ping), so, you can use it without IP configuration, or to “ping” an host in other IP network. However, you can only use it on local networks.

Usage

>>> from arprequest import ArpRequest
>>> ar = ArpRequest('10.0.0.1', 'eth0')
>>> ar.request()
True
>>> ar2 = ArpRequest('10.0.0.123', 'eth0') # 10.0.0.123 doesen't exist
>>> ar2.request()
False

Constraints

• ArpRequest work only on unix or unix-like platforms because it uses unix signals.

• ArpRequest work only as root, because it uses raw sockets.

• Module is commented in french. I will translate comments in english, a day…