Corelan Cybersecurity Research

I wanted to share a small utility that I wrote a while ago, allowing you to run a non-interactive ‘ping’ to a tcp port (e.g. from within a script).

This could for example allow you to bring up a VPN tunnel from a script (by generating traffic to a target host), to determine whether a tcp port is open or not and so on… I’m sure all of you are creative enough to see the wide range of possibilities and applications for this utility.

The tool is a command-line utility, should run on Windows 32bit and 64bit, and requires .Net framework 2.0.

Usage :

Unzip the file and place the file pvetcpping.exe somewhere on your harddrive, preferable in a folder that is part of your PATH variable (e.g. c:windowssystem32)

If you run the utility without parameters, this is what you’ll get :

---------------------------------
PVE TCP Ping Utility
Written by Peter Van Eeckhoutte
http://www.corelan.be:8800
Version 1.0.0.1
---------------------------------

Usage :
pvetcpping.exe   []

Both the  and  parameters are mandatory.
The  parameter is optional.
Set this parameter to 0 to launch a continuous ping.

As you can see, there are 3 possible parameters. The target host and target port number are mandatory, the number of pings is optional. If you don’t specify a number of pings, then 4 pings will be performed.

If you run the utility with correct parameters, this is what you should get :

c:> pvetcpping.exe www.google.com 80
---------------------------------
PVE TCP Ping Utility
Written by Peter Van Eeckhoutte
http://www.corelan.be:8800
Version 1.0.0.1
---------------------------------

[+] Connecting to tcp port 80 on host www.google.com...
[+] Number of pings : 4
[+] Started probing at 20:33:32
[+] Probing host www.google.com on port tcp/80 - Connect OK - 84ms.
[+] Probing host www.google.com on port tcp/80 - Connect OK - 17ms.
[+] Probing host www.google.com on port tcp/80 - Connect OK - 19ms.
[+] Probing host www.google.com on port tcp/80 - Connect OK - 18ms.

TCP Ping statistics for www.google.com port tcp/80
Connects : 4, Success : 4, Failed : 0 (0% loss)
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 17ms, Maximum = 84ms, Average = 34ms

Starting from version 1.0.0.1, timestamps are added to the output of the utility

• when the probes start
• when the status changes

---------------------------------
 PVE TCP Ping Utility
 Written by Peter Van Eeckhoutte
 http://www.corelan.be:8800
 Version 1.0.0.1
---------------------------------

 [+] Connecting to tcp port 22 on host 192.168.0.116...
 [+] Number of pings : Unlimited
 [+] Started probing at 20:33:32
 [+] Probing host 192.168.0.116 on port tcp/22 - Connect OK - 30ms.
 [+] Probing host 192.168.0.116 on port tcp/22 - Connect OK - 0ms.
 [+] Probing host 192.168.0.116 on port tcp/22 - Connect OK - 0ms.
 [+] Probing host 192.168.0.116 on port tcp/22 - Connect OK - 0ms.
 [+] Probing host 192.168.0.116 on port tcp/22 - Connect OK - 0ms.
 [+] Probing host 192.168.0.116 on port tcp/22 - Connect OK - 0ms.
 [-] Probe status changed at 20:33:59
 [-] Probing host 192.168.0.116 on port tcp/22 - Connect failed
 [-] Probing host 192.168.0.116 on port tcp/22 - Connect failed
 [-] Probing host 192.168.0.116 on port tcp/22 - Connect failed
 [+] Probe status changed at 20:34:44
 [+] Probing host 192.168.0.116 on port tcp/22 - Connect OK - 0ms.
 [+] Probing host 192.168.0.116 on port tcp/22 - Connect OK - 0ms.
 [+] Probing host 192.168.0.116 on port tcp/22 - Connect OK - 0ms.
 [+] Probing host 192.168.0.116 on port tcp/22 - Connect OK - 0ms.

 TCP Ping statistics for 192.168.0.116 port tcp/22
     Connects : 13,  Success : 10, Failed : 3  (0% loss)
 Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
     Minimum = 30ms, Maximum = 30ms, Average = 2ms

Version history

1.0.0.1 : April 2009 : Added timestamps to output

1.0 : Initial release

Known issues

The statistics at the end of the probe sequence may report an incorrect loss percentage.

Download

Note : before downloading the utility, you must be logged on to this blog.

Registration is free, you can register here

You can download the utility from the link(s) below :

© 2008 – 2021, Peter Van Eeckhoutte (corelanc0d3r). All rights reserved.

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