Python - Sending os.system command to a string

[Goldberg]

All,

I am stumped at the moment....
I am trying to run an os.system command and in turn write the value to a string so I can check the outcome.

Basically I need to ping a machine on the server, write the results of the ping to a string and then search the string and extract the result.

So far I have this (I have not got onto the searching string code yet as I keep getting 0!!):

import os

# Ping Server to make sure it is available
os.system('cls')
print("Pinging Server to ensure it is online")
print("")
Server_Up = os.system('ping 192.168.0.1')
print("")
print(Server_Up)
print("")

I just keep getting '0' as the output??? Any ideas....

What I expect to see whent I print the string is:

Pinging Server [192.168.0.1] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64

Ping statistics for 192.168.0.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms

[blacksheep]

That's going to return you the exit status of what you're run, have a look at os.popen.

[Goldberg]

Yeah but os.popen seems to fail on Windows??

[blacksheep]

hmmmm not sure why that is, but everything I've done in python has been linux - maybe commands.getoutput?

[Goldberg]

I'll have a play later. For now I just send the ping command and view the result manually rather than automatically.

Cheers again mate.

[Ashy]

You should be able to use os.popen even in windows.

import os
tmp = os.popen("ping 127.0.0.1").readlines()
print tmp

It works fine for me in windows

edit:
I was bored
This should do what you want.

import os
def checkHost( host ):
    tmp = os.popen("ping -n 2 %s" % host).readlines()
    for line in tmp:
        if "Reply from" in line:
            return True
    return False

if checkHost("127.0.0.1"):
    print "Its UP"
else:
    print "Its DOWN"

[Goldberg]

Legend mate, works a treat. It was the readlines bit I was missing.