mping - Multi-Host Ping Tool

A concurrent ping utility written in Rust.

Overview

mping is a command-line tool that can ping multiple hosts simultaneously and display comprehensive statistics. Even though this tool solves a practical problem I have had in the past, it mainly is for me a practical learning exercise for exploring Rust's key features including async programming, error handling, and systems programming.

Features

• Concurrent Pinging: Ping multiple hosts simultaneously using async/await.
• Comprehensive Statistics: Track sent/received packets, loss rates, and timing statistics.
• Beautiful Output: Formatted tables with UTF-8 borders using comfy-table.
• Flexible Configuration: Customizable ping interval and number of ICMP packets to send.
• Cross-Platform: Works on macOS, Linux, and Windows.

Usage

# Ping multiple hosts with default settings (5 pings each)
mping google.com 8.8.8.8 cloudflare.com

# Customize ping count and delay
mping -c 10 -d 0.5 example.com 1.1.1.1

# Ping with specific parameters
mping --count 20 --delay 1.5 github.com stackoverflow.com

Note: The minimum delay between packets is 100 ms to avoid flooding multiple hosts with ICMP packets. If you specify a smaller delay, it is automatically set to 100 ms. For flood pinging I ask you to use the iputils ping command.

Sample Output

PING 3 hosts with 5 packets each in 1.00 s intervals ...
2a00:1450:4001:82f::200e ping error: Request timeout for icmp_seq 1

╭──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ Host             Addr                       Sent   Recv   Loss    Min        Max        Avg      │
╞══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╡
│ google.com       2a00:1450:4001:82f::200e   5      4      20.0%   21.60 ms   50.84 ms   34.42 ms │
│ -                8.8.8.8                    5      5      0.0%    24.16 ms   70.47 ms   43.10 ms │
│ cloudflare.com   2606:4700::6810:84e5       5      5      0.0%    30.04 ms   70.28 ms   44.15 ms │
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

Overall 15 sent, 14 received (6.67 % loss)

Installation

Prerequisites

• Rust 1.87.0 or later
• Cargo package manager

Building from Source

git clone git@github.com:johndoe75/mping.git
cd mping
cargo build --release

Running

cargo run -- google.com 8.8.8.8

Dependencies

• tokio: Async runtime for concurrent operations
• surge-ping: ICMP ping implementation
• clap: Command-line argument parsing
• anyhow: Simplified error handling
• comfy-table: Beautiful table formatting
• futures: Async utilities
• colored: Terminal color output
• rand: Random number generation

Learning Resources

This project explores concepts covered in:

• The Rust Programming Language Book
• Async Programming in Rust
• Rust by Example

Contributing

This is primarily a learning project, but contributions that enhance the educational value are welcome! Feel free to:

• Add comments explaining complex concepts
• Suggest alternative implementations
• Improve error handling patterns
• Add new features that demonstrate Rust concepts

🤝 Fair Use Policy

This project is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License and made available as open source in the spirit of collaboration and mutual benefit.

We kindly ask all users — especially commercial users — to follow this Fair Use Policy:

💡 If you use this project in production:

• Please contribute back improvements, bug fixes, or enhancements whenever possible.
• Please consider sponsoring the project, supporting long-term maintenance and development.
• Please open issues if you encounter bugs or have ideas that could help others.

🔁 If you modify or extend the project:

• Share your improvements publicly, if possible.
• If not, let the maintainers know privately — we’re open to collaboration, even under NDA if needed.

🌱 If you benefit from the project:

• Give credit where due (e.g. in documentation or acknowledgments).
• Advocate for open source sustainability in your company or organization.

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This is not a legal requirement — it's a social contract.

We believe in the open source ecosystem as a shared effort.
If you benefit from this project, please be fair and help keep it alive.

Thank you for being a responsible open source user.