hping3 is a command-line network utility for constructing and sending customised TCP/IP packets. It is designed for examining network behaviour, testing firewalls and investigating how remote systems respond to different types of traffic.
Unlike conventional ping, hping3 is not limited to ICMP echo requests. It can generate TCP and UDP packets, manipulate protocol fields and inspect the responses returned by remote hosts.
The application is particularly useful for network administrators, security researchers and students learning about TCP/IP. Its extensive packet controls make it possible to investigate routing, filtering and protocol behaviour at a lower level than ordinary connectivity tools.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Generate TCP, UDP, ICMP and raw IP packets.
- Configure TCP flags, source and destination ports and packet payloads.
- Customise IP time-to-live, type-of-service and other header fields.
- Probe firewall rules and investigate packet filtering.
- Perform TCP-based port scanning and examine returned flags.
- Traceroute mode using different supported protocols.
- Investigate network paths using customised TTL values.
- Construct fragmented packets for protocol testing.
- Control packet sizes, transmission intervals and repetition.
- Examine TCP sequence numbers, acknowledgements and window sizes.
- Assist with operating-system fingerprinting and TCP/IP stack analysis.
- Test path maximum transmission unit behaviour.
- Scripting facilities for automating more complex packet experiments.
Website: github.com/antirez/hping
Support:
Developer: Salvatore Sanfilippo and contributors
License: GNU General Public License v2.0
hping is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Alternatives to ping | |
|---|---|
| pingnoo | Offers a graphical representation for traceroute and ping output (GUI) |
| hping3 | Supports TCP, UDP, ICMP and RAW-IP protocols with traceroute mode |
| gping | Ping but with a graph |
| GNOME Nettool | Performs ping, netstat, traceroute, port scans, lookup, and whois (GUI) |
| mtr | Combines 'traceroute' and 'ping' programs in a single network tool |
| pingtop | Ping multiple servers and show the result in a top like terminal UI |
| pingu | Command implementation in Go but with colorful output and pingu ascii art |
| 2ping | Bi-directional ping tool using 3-way pings (akin to TCP SYN, SYN/ACK, ACK) |
| BWPing | Measures bandwidth and response times between two hosts using ICMP |
| cnping | Minimal graphical IPv4 Ping / HTTP tool |
| fping | Send ICMP echo probes to network hosts |
| SmokePing | Measure, store and display latency, latency distribution and packet loss |
| tcping | ICMP ping but for TCP |
| alive | Periodic ping |
| ping3 | Python3 version of ICMP ping |
| echoping | Testing tool for network protocols |
| xping | Continuously probe multiple hosts using icmp-echo |
| omping | Test IPv4/IPv6 multicast connectivity on a LAN |
| Trippy | Network diagnostic tool combining the functionality of ping & traceroute |
| Echo | Simple GUI GTK4 utility to ping websites |
| pingstat | Multi-server ping logging |
| myping | Ping multiple hosts at the same time |
| mtr085 | Fork of mtr adding functionality such as Unicode histograms |
| mtr-gtk | GUI frontend |
| Ping Monitor | Displays real-time ping times (GUI) |
| split ping | See the direction of loss or latency |
| ring | ping rewritten in Rust |
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