First, a .BAT file needs to be created that will be run from the Active Server Page. Let's call this file DoPing.BAT. It will contain only one statement, which will ping a passed in IP address. Here is the code for DoPing.BAT:

ping -a %1 > d:\INetPub\cgi-bin\%2.txt

This will, if you can't tell, ping the address passed in as the first command line argument (%1), and redirect the results to a text file named hy the second command line argument (%2). Now, let's look how we would call this from an ASP file:

<%

Set FileSys = Server.CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
FileName = FileSys.GetTempName

Set WShShell = Server.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

IP = "204.123.54.1" ' or whatever you want to ping
RetCode = WShShell.Run("d:\Inetpub\cgi-bin\DoPing.bat " & IP & " " & FileName, 1, True)

if RetCode = 0 Then

'There were no errors

else

Response.Redirect "PingErrors.htm"

end if


Set TextFile = FileSys.OpenTextFile("d:\InetPub\cgi-bin\" & FileName & ".txt", 1)
TextBuffer = TextFile.ReadAll

For i = 1 to Len(TextBuffer)

If Mid(TextBuffer,i,1) = chr(13) Then

Response.Write("<BR>")

else

Response.Write(Mid(TextBuffer,i,1))

end if

Next

TextFile.Close

FileSys.DeleteFile "d:\Inetpub\cgi-bin\" & FileName & ".txt"

%>

Before you go hog wild and implement this code or use similar techniques on your site, there are a few things you should be wary of. From a secutiry standpoint, this is really dangerous, for any time you let someone run an application on your server there is always the potential that it will come back to haunt you. One suggestion to lessen the threat: make a separate folder with no script or execute priviledges, and have your DoPing.bat output its results to that folder.

I hope this article was informative an interesting. Happy Programming!

Bart Silverstein has written several great articles for 4GuysFromRolla.com. When he is not writing articles, Bart is often found on the many ASP messageboards, answering questions.

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