GBLPing

Splendidly detailed network and datalink-layer operations, tests, and utilities for Swift apps.

What is GBLPing?

A Powerful, lightweight, and super fast framework that makes the often-difficult task of getting detailed network and datalink-layer information from the devices running your application.

Benefits:

• Fine-grained control over host reachability operations
• Gets detailed network interface information about the local device
• Enables retrieval of remote MAC addresses within local networks
• Enabled capture and storage of actual packets as Codable Swift objects (see docs for GBLPingResult)
• Fully documented in DocC

[Note: some of this documentation is about features that are not yet exposed]

Get it

Available via:

• Swift Package Manager: Github

Usage

Full documentation available via Github Pages

You can also run the test project from Projects/GBLPingExample/GBLPingExample.xcodeproj and view the source for a functional example.

Also, see Unit Tests for information on tests, which also have implementation examples.

Implementation samples:

Network Utilities

Reachability

Check if the device is online and able to reach the internet

import GBLPing
...
Ping.network.isReachable { reachable in
   switch reachable {
	case true:
		proceedWithOperation()
	case false:
		handleOfflineOptions()
	}
}

// Note: this will ping cloudflare’s 
// nameserver `ns.cloudflare.com`

Hostname Utilities

Reachability

Check if a given host is reachable by hostname

import GBLPing
...

Ping.host.isReachable(hostname: “google.com”) { reachable in
    switch reachable {
    case true:
        handleForTrue()
    case false:
        handleForFalse()
    }
}

Ping Hosts

Ping a given host by hostname continuously without stopping

import GBLPing
...

Ping.svc.pingHostname(
   hostname: gigabitelabs.com,
   maxPings: maxAttempts) { (reachable) in
	// process only after all attempts 
	// have succeeded
	switch reachable {
	case true:
		proceedWithOperation()
	case false:
		handleOfflineOptions()
	}
}

Ping a given host by hostname, but limit the total pings to a given number

import GBLPing
...

GBLPing.svc.pingHostname(
   hostname: gigabitelabs.com,
   maxPings: maxAttempts) { (reachable) in
	// process only after all attempts 
	// have succeeded
	switch reachable {
	case true:
		proceedWithOperation()
	case false:
		handleOfflineOptions()
	}
}

Local Device Utilities

Network Interfaces

Get a list of the local device’s network interfaces

import GBLPing
...
// TODO: Docs

Network Interface Names

Get the names of all local network interfaces

import GBLPing
...
// TODO: Docs

Network Interface Info

Get information about a given network interface

import GBLPing
...
// TODO: Docs

Unit Tests

• Clone the repository
• cd to root
• Open Package.swift, or the .xcworkspace
• Select the appropriate target device
• Run tests

No UI tests are currently available, however, there IS a test project that will let you quickly run the implementation and view ping data.

Run the test project from Projects/GBLPingExample/GBLPingExample.xcodeproj

Notes

Typealiases

• GBLPing is typealiased to Ping for convenience and simplicity

Acknowledgements

This framework is a mixed Swift & Obj-C package that contains work by Apple and a few others.

• SimplePing: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/samplecode/SimplePing/Introduction/Intro.html
• MacFinder: https://github.com/mavris/MacFinder