node-red-contrib-ping 1.0.0

Node-RED nodes for grouped and standalone ICMP ping monitors powered by the system ping command.

npm install node-red-contrib-ping

node-red-contrib-ping

Node-RED contribution nodes for grouped and standalone ICMP ping monitors.

License and AI assistance

This package is original code licensed under the MIT License. It was developed with AI assistance from OpenAI Codex, running the DeepSeek V4 Flash model, and is maintained by lathesky. AI tools are not listed as an author or maintainer.

Installation

After the package is published to npm, install it in your Node-RED user directory:

npm install node-red-contrib-ping

Usage

Ping uses the system ping command (ICMP echo), so targets are host names or IP addresses rather than ports.

ping-group

Send all targets that should be monitored to the ping-group node in msg.payload. Each new message replaces the complete active set: the node stops every previous pinger before starting the new array. Every target pings immediately, then once per configured interval, and each round emits one result message.

[
  { "id": "router", "host": "192.168.1.1" },
  { "id": "dns", "host": "8.8.8.8", "timeout": 2000 }
]

Each item requires id and host; timeout (milliseconds) is optional. A plain string is also accepted as shorthand, with id defaulting to the host. ids and hosts must be unique within one message.

Result output (msg.event === 'result'):

{ "id": "router", "host": "192.168.1.1", "resolved": "192.168.1.1", "alive": true, "time": 1.2, "ttl": 64, "error": null }

Hosts are resolved before pinging: resolved is the IP address that was actually pinged. alive is true on a successful reply, time is the round-trip time in milliseconds, and ttl is the packet time-to-live. error is one of host not found (DNS name does not exist), DNS lookup failed, timeout, unreachable, no reply, or ping command not available.

ping-standalone

Use ping-standalone for a single pinger that must remain independent of group updates. It restarts its own pinger for every input, taking one target in msg.payload; without msg.payload, it uses the node editor settings.

{ "host": "10.0.0.1", "timeout": 3000, "interval": 5000 }

A plain host string is also accepted. timeout and interval (milliseconds) are optional in the payload. Each round emits one result message with the same shape as the group output, without the id field.