network-pinger 2.1.8

Async network monitoring tool with real-time terminal UI, alerts, and connection quality analysis

Pinger

Real-time network monitoring in your terminal

Async network monitoring tool with Rich-based terminal dashboard, smart alerts, DNS benchmarks, hop-by-hop health tracking, and automatic problem diagnosis.

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Highlights

Ping & Latency	DNS Benchmark	Hop Health
Sparkline charts, jitter, loss trends	Cached / Uncached / DotCom tests	Per-hop latency & loss in real time
Smart Alerts	Problem Analysis	Route Tracking
Sound + visual, threshold hysteresis	ISP / local / DNS / MTU auto-diagnosis	Change detection, auto traceroute

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Quick Start

pipx install network-pinger
pinger

Requires: Python 3.10+ and system ping / traceroute (tracert on Windows).

Press Ctrl+C for graceful shutdown.

Upgrading

pipx upgrade network-pinger

The app checks for new versions on startup and shows a notification if an update is available:

Alternative Install

pip install network-pinger
# or from source
pip install -r requirements.txt && python pinger.py

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Features

Ping Monitoring

Real-time latency tracking with current / best / average / peak / median / jitter metrics. Sparkline charts and Unicode progress bars give you an instant visual overview. Packet loss detection with consecutive loss counter.

DNS Monitoring & Benchmark

Monitors multiple record types simultaneously (A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, NS). Built-in benchmark suite:

Test	What it measures
Cached	DNS response from cache (repeat query)
Uncached	Full recursive resolution (random domain)
DotCom	Response time for a popular .com domain

Statistics: min / avg / max / sigma / reliability. Color-coded: green (fast), yellow (slow), red (failed). Supports multiple DNS servers for comparison:

DNS_BENCHMARK_SERVERS = ["system", "1.1.1.1", "8.8.8.8"]

Smart Alerts

Sound and visual notifications with configurable thresholds for packet loss, latency, jitter, and connection loss. Threshold hysteresis prevents alert flickering. Cooldown system avoids spam.

Problem Analysis & Prediction

Automatic classification of network issues: ISP, local network, DNS, or MTU. Pattern detection identifies recurring problems. Predictive engine estimates when issues may return.

Hop Health Monitoring

Automatic hop discovery via traceroute. Periodic parallel ping of every intermediate hop. Full table with min / avg / last latency and loss per hop, color-coded by severity.

Route Analysis

Traceroute-based hop comparison over time. Detects route changes with configurable sensitivity. Auto-saves traceroute results to traceroutes/ on connection problems.

Network Metrics

• Public IP — change detection with geo info (city, ISP, AS)
• MTU / Path MTU — discovery, fragmentation detection
• TTL — monitoring and hop count estimation

Observability

• Prometheus — /metrics endpoint on port 8000
• Health — /health and /ready endpoints on port 8001
• Docker & Helm — production-ready deployment

Localization

Automatically detected from system locale. Supports Russian and English.

# Override in config.py if needed
CURRENT_LANGUAGE = "en"  # or "ru"

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Interface

The dashboard consists of a header, status bar, multi-panel body, and footer:

┌────────────── Network Monitor → 1.1.1.1  v2.1.8 ✓  10:35:21 ──────────────┐
╔══ ● CONNECTED  │  Ping: 12.3ms  │  Loss: 0.0%  │  Uptime: 2h 15m ════════╗
┌─ LATENCY ─────────────────┐  ┌─ STATISTICS ──────────────┐
│ Current  12 ms   Best 8 ms│  │ Sent    5400    ██████████ │
│ Average  14 ms   Peak 45ms│  │ OK      5398    99.96%     │
│ Median   13 ms   Jitter 3 │  │ Lost       2    ░░░░░░░░░░ │
│ ▁▂▃▂▃▅▃▂▁▂▃▂▃▅▃▂▁▂▃▂▃▅▃▂ │  │ Consecutive: 0  Max: 1     │
└───────────────────────────┘  └────────────────────────────┘
┌─ ANALYSIS ────────────────┐  ┌─ MONITORING ──────────────┐
│ ─── Problems ──────────── │  │ ─── DNS ──────────────── │
│ Type: No problems         │  │ A✓ AAAA✓ MX✓ TXT✓ NS✓   │
│ Prediction: Stable        │  │ C:12  U:45  D:25 │ avg:27│
│ ─── Route ─────────────── │  │ ─── Network ──────────── │
│ Status: Stable (6 hops)   │  │ TTL: 117  MTU: 1500 OK   │
│ Changes: 0                │  │ ─── Notifications ────── │
└───────────────────────────┘  │ No active alerts.         │
                               └────────────────────────────┘
┌─ HOP HEALTH ──────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  #   Min       Avg       Last      Loss    Host               │
│  1   1 ms      1 ms      1 ms      0.0%    192.168.1.1        │
│  2   14 ms     14 ms     13 ms     0.0%    10.0.0.1           │
│  3   15 ms     14 ms     14 ms     0.0%    hostname [1.2.3.4] │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Panel	Description
Status bar	Connection state (CONNECTED / DEGRADED / DISCONNECTED), key metrics
Latency	Current / best / avg / peak / median / jitter + sparkline chart
Statistics	Packet counters, success rate with progress bars
Analysis	Problem type & prediction + route status
Monitoring	DNS records, benchmark, TTL/MTU, notifications
Hop Health	Per-hop latency & loss table, color-coded

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Configuration

All settings are in config.py. Here are the key options:

Core

TARGET_IP = "8.8.8.8"          # Ping target
INTERVAL = 1                    # Ping interval (seconds)
WINDOW_SIZE = 1800              # Stats window (30 min)
LATENCY_WINDOW = 600            # Latency history (10 min)

Thresholds & Alerts

PACKET_LOSS_THRESHOLD = 5.0     # Packet loss warning (%)
AVG_LATENCY_THRESHOLD = 100     # Average latency warning (ms)
JITTER_THRESHOLD = 30           # Jitter warning (ms)
CONSECUTIVE_LOSS_THRESHOLD = 5  # Consecutive lost packets

ENABLE_SOUND_ALERTS = True
ALERT_COOLDOWN = 5              # Min interval between sounds (seconds)

DNS Monitoring

ENABLE_DNS_MONITORING = True
DNS_TEST_DOMAIN = "cloudflare.com"
DNS_CHECK_INTERVAL = 10
DNS_SLOW_THRESHOLD = 100        # "Slow" threshold (ms)
DNS_RECORD_TYPES = ["A", "AAAA", "CNAME", "MX", "TXT", "NS"]

ENABLE_DNS_BENCHMARK = True
DNS_BENCHMARK_SERVERS = ["system"]  # or ["1.1.1.1", "8.8.8.8"]

IP / MTU / TTL

ENABLE_IP_CHANGE_ALERT = True
IP_CHECK_INTERVAL = 15

ENABLE_MTU_MONITORING = True
MTU_CHECK_INTERVAL = 30

Traceroute & Hop Monitoring

ENABLE_AUTO_TRACEROUTE = False   # Manual trigger or on route change
TRACEROUTE_TRIGGER_LOSSES = 3
TRACEROUTE_COOLDOWN = 300
TRACEROUTE_MAX_HOPS = 15

ENABLE_HOP_MONITORING = True
HOP_PING_INTERVAL = 1
HOP_PING_TIMEOUT = 0.5
HOP_LATENCY_GOOD = 50          # Green (ms)
HOP_LATENCY_WARN = 100         # Yellow (ms), above = red

Analysis

ENABLE_PROBLEM_ANALYSIS = True
PROBLEM_ANALYSIS_INTERVAL = 60

ENABLE_ROUTE_ANALYSIS = True
ROUTE_ANALYSIS_INTERVAL = 1800
ROUTE_CHANGE_CONSECUTIVE = 2

Logging & Metrics

LOG_FILE = "~/.pinger/ping_monitor.log"
LOG_LEVEL = "INFO"
LOG_TRUNCATE_ON_START = True

ENABLE_METRICS = True           # Prometheus on :8000
ENABLE_HEALTH_ENDPOINT = True   # Health on :8001

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Deployment

Docker

docker compose up -d

Service	Port	Description
pinger	8000	Prometheus metrics
pinger	8001	Health (/health, /ready)
prometheus	9090	Prometheus UI

Kubernetes (Helm)

helm install pinger ./charts/pinger -f charts/pinger/values.yaml

See charts/pinger/README.md for details.

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For Developers

pip install poetry
git clone https://github.com/meshlg/_pinger.git
cd _pinger && poetry install
poetry run pinger

See CONTRIBUTING.md for building, publishing, and contribution guidelines.

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MIT License · 2026 © meshlg | Discord: meshlg