looping through IP address range

[NetworkElf]

Hi all,

Does anyone have some code that shows an example of how to loop through a
range of IP addresses? I'm using text boxes to get a start and end value for
the range. I was thinking about using 4 nested for-next loops, but I seem to
be having trouble working out the logic to validate the octets in the
beginning and ending address so the range works correctly.

i.e. 172.16.1.1/172.20.1.1 should loop 172-172,16-20,1-254,1-254
172.16.1.1/172.16.1.254 should loop 172-172,16-16,1-1,1-254
172.16.1.5/172.16.1.15 should loop 172-172,16-16,1-1,5-15

and so on...

Is there an easier way to do this without for-next loops?

Thanks,

ne.

[Robin Tucker]

Hi Network,
What is your application?

Robin

[NetworkElf]

"Robin Tucker" <rt******@remov ehotmail.comwro te in message
news:f2******** ***********@new s.demon.co.uk.. .

>
Hi Network,
What is your application?

I'm writing a little app to scan our network address by address. I want to
be able to specify a start and end address so that the app can touch each
address in between, inclusive of the end addresses.

It may well be that that for-next thing is the wrong approach, but I've not
come up with anything better as of yet. I've been going through
system.net.ip* and system.networki nformation, but I don't see anything that
looks promising.

[Ray Cassick]

"NetworkElf " <Ne********@nos pam.nospamwrote in message
news:OK******** ******@TK2MSFTN GP06.phx.gbl...

>
"Robin Tucker" <rt******@remov ehotmail.comwro te in message
news:f2******** ***********@new s.demon.co.uk.. .

>>
Hi Network,
What is your application?

I'm writing a little app to scan our network address by address. I want to
be able to specify a start and end address so that the app can touch each
address in between, inclusive of the end addresses.

It may well be that that for-next thing is the wrong approach, but I've
not come up with anything better as of yet. I've been going through
system.net.ip* and system.networki nformation, but I don't see anything
that looks promising.

Whats wrong with the nested loops? Loosk like it would work fine:

Dim Oct1 As Integer = 0
Dim Oct2 As Integer = 0
Dim Oct3 As Integer = 0
Dim Oct4 As Integer = 0

For Oct1 = 0 to 255
For Oct2 = 0 to 255
For Oct3 = 0 to 255
For Oct4 = 0 to 255
Dim ipAddress As New StringBuilder
ipAddress.Appen d(Oct1.ToString )
ipAddress.Appen d(".")
ipAddress.Appen d(Oct2.ToString )
ipAddress.Appen d(".")
ipAddress.Appen d(Oct3.ToString )
ipAddress.Appen d(".")
ipAddress.Appen d(Oct4.ToString )
SubToScanAddres s(ipAddress.ToS tring)
Next Oct4
Next Oct3
Next Oct2
Next Oct1

You might want to do some filtering on things like the addresses used for
multicast and broadcast stuff but this would seem to work.

>

[Ray Cassick]

"Ray Cassick" <rc******@enter procity.comwrot e in message
news:%2******** *******@TK2MSFT NGP03.phx.gbl.. .

>
"NetworkElf " <Ne********@nos pam.nospamwrote in message
news:OK******** ******@TK2MSFTN GP06.phx.gbl...

>>
"Robin Tucker" <rt******@remov ehotmail.comwro te in message
news:f2******* ************@ne ws.demon.co.uk. ..

>>>
Hi Network,
What is your application?

I'm writing a little app to scan our network address by address. I want
to be able to specify a start and end address so that the app can touch
each address in between, inclusive of the end addresses.

It may well be that that for-next thing is the wrong approach, but I've
not come up with anything better as of yet. I've been going through
system.net.i p* and system.networki nformation, but I don't see anything
that looks promising.

Whats wrong with the nested loops? Loosk like it would work fine:

Dim Oct1 As Integer = 0
Dim Oct2 As Integer = 0
Dim Oct3 As Integer = 0
Dim Oct4 As Integer = 0

For Oct1 = 0 to 255
For Oct2 = 0 to 255
For Oct3 = 0 to 255
For Oct4 = 0 to 255
Dim ipAddress As New StringBuilder
ipAddress.Appen d(Oct1.ToString )
ipAddress.Appen d(".")
ipAddress.Appen d(Oct2.ToString )
ipAddress.Appen d(".")
ipAddress.Appen d(Oct3.ToString )
ipAddress.Appen d(".")
ipAddress.Appen d(Oct4.ToString )
SubToScanAddres s(ipAddress.ToS tring)
Next Oct4
Next Oct3
Next Oct2
Next Oct1

You might want to do some filtering on things like the addresses used for
multicast and broadcast stuff but this would seem to work.

Oopps.. forgot one of your requirements, to pick a starting point...

Dim Oct1 As Integer = 0
Dim Oct2 As Integer = 0
Dim Oct3 As Integer = 0
Dim Oct4 As Integer = 0

Dim Oct1Start As Integer = 0
Dim Oct2Start As Integer = 0
Dim Oct3Start As Integer = 0
Dim Oct4Start As Integer = 0

For Oct1 = Oct1Start to 255
For Oct2 = Oct2Start to 255
For Oct3 = Oct3Start to 255
For Oct4 = Oct4Start to 255
Dim ipAddress As New StringBuilder
ipAddress.Appen d(Oct1.ToString )
ipAddress.Appen d(".")
ipAddress.Appen d(Oct2.ToString )
ipAddress.Appen d(".")
ipAddress.Appen d(Oct3.ToString )
ipAddress.Appen d(".")
ipAddress.Appen d(Oct4.ToString )
SubToScanAddres s(ipAddress.ToS tring)
Next Oct4
Next Oct3
Next Oct2
Next Oct1

[Steven Cheng[MSFT]]

Thanks for Ray's informative input.

Hi Ne,

Here is a former thread discussing on calculating IP address through a
network address and subnet mask:

http://groups.google.com/group/micro...rk/browse_thre
ad/thread/580b74b01ab29ad d/faa701a914673db a

you can also have a look to see whether you can get some additional hint
there.

Hope this also helps some.

Sincerely,

Steven Cheng

Microsoft MSDN Online Support Lead
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

[NetworkElf]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ray Cassick" <rc******@enter procity.com>
Newsgroups: microsoft.publi c.dotnet.langua ges.vb
Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2007 2:09 PM
Subject: Re: looping through IP address range

>
"Ray Cassick" <rc******@enter procity.comwrot e in message
news:%2******** *******@TK2MSFT NGP03.phx.gbl.. .

>>
"NetworkElf " <Ne********@nos pam.nospamwrote in message
news:OK******* *******@TK2MSFT NGP06.phx.gbl.. .

>>>
"Robin Tucker" <rt******@remov ehotmail.comwro te in message
news:f2****** *************@n ews.demon.co.uk ...

Hi Network,
What is your application?

I'm writing a little app to scan our network address by address. I want
to be able to specify a start and end address so that the app can touch
each address in between, inclusive of the end addresses.

It may well be that that for-next thing is the wrong approach, but I've
not come up with anything better as of yet. I've been going through
system.net.ip * and system.networki nformation, but I don't see anything
that looks promising.

Whats wrong with the nested loops? Loosk like it would work fine:

Nothing is wrong with them, per se. I just thought that there might be a
better way to handle it that I didn't know about.

>
Oopps.. forgot one of your requirements, to pick a starting point...

Dim Oct1 As Integer = 0
Dim Oct2 As Integer = 0
Dim Oct3 As Integer = 0
Dim Oct4 As Integer = 0

Dim Oct1Start As Integer = 0
Dim Oct2Start As Integer = 0
Dim Oct3Start As Integer = 0
Dim Oct4Start As Integer = 0

For Oct1 = Oct1Start to 255
For Oct2 = Oct2Start to 255
For Oct3 = Oct3Start to 255
For Oct4 = Oct4Start to 255
Dim ipAddress As New StringBuilder
ipAddress.Appen d(Oct1.ToString )
ipAddress.Appen d(".")
ipAddress.Appen d(Oct2.ToString )
ipAddress.Appen d(".")
ipAddress.Appen d(Oct3.ToString )
ipAddress.Appen d(".")
ipAddress.Appen d(Oct4.ToString )
SubToScanAddres s(ipAddress.ToS tring)
Next Oct4
Next Oct3
Next Oct2
Next Oct1

This is pretty close to what I had. The problem I ran into was building in
all of the logic that I needed. For example, if the start is 172.16.2.1 and
the end is 172.16.3.100 then the end of the range for the last octet would
equal 254 when the 3rd octet equals 2 and, when the 3rd octet equals 3, the
end of the range would be 100.

This is where I've been running into problems getting the kinks out of my
loop logic, thus my original post looking for ideas. On the surface, it
sounds like it should be straightforward , but it's not shaping up that way
thus far.

Am I making this harder than it really needs to be?

Thanks for your input!

ne.

[Steven Cheng[MSFT]]

Hi NE,

For the following problem you mentioned:

======
This is pretty close to what I had. The problem I ran into was building in
all of the logic that I needed. For example, if the start is 172.16.2.1 and
the end is 172.16.3.100 then the end of the range for the last octet would
equal 254 when the 3rd octet equals 2 and, when the 3rd octet equals 3, the
end of the range would be 100.
======

I think the original code logic still work, however, you need to add an
additional flag variable to indicate whether the outer loop is arriving the
last number, if so, the inner loop will choose the end number of the last
byte as the upper bound , other wise, use 254 as upper bound. How do you
think?
Sincerely,

Steven Cheng

Microsoft MSDN Online Support Lead
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

[Andrew Morton]

NetworkElf wrote:

Does anyone have some code that shows an example of how to loop
through a range of IP addresses? I'm using text boxes to get a start
and end value for the range. I was thinking about using 4 nested
for-next loops, but I seem to be having trouble working out the logic
to validate the octets in the beginning and ending address so the
range works correctly.
i.e. 172.16.1.1/172.20.1.1 should loop 172-172,16-20,1-254,1-254
172.16.1.1/172.16.1.254 should loop 172-172,16-16,1-1,1-254
172.16.1.5/172.16.1.15 should loop 172-172,16-16,1-1,5-15

and so on...

Is there an easier way to do this without for-next loops?

Um, can't you convert them into simple numbers and use one loop from the
first to the last, converting each integer back into the four parts?
Private Function ippify(ByVal n As Int64) As String
Return (n >24).ToString & "." & ((n And &HFF0000) >16).ToString &
"." & ((n And &HFF00) >8).ToString & "." & (n And &HFF).ToStri ng
End Function

Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVa l sender As System.Object, ByVal e As
System.EventArg s) Handles MyBase.Load

Dim a1 As String = "1.2.3.1"
Dim a2 As String = "1.2.4.255"

Dim n1, n2 As Int64 ' I have no Uint32

' convert string representations of IP addresses to int64
Dim p() As String = a1.Split(".")
For i As Integer = 0 To UBound(p)
n1 = 256 * n1 + p(i)
Next
p = a2.Split(".")
For i As Integer = 0 To UBound(p)
n2 = 256 * n2 + p(i)
Next

' do something with the range of addresses
Dim s As New StringBuilder
For i As Int64 = n1 To n2
s.Append(ippify (i) & vbCrLf)
Next
' Assuming you have a textbox named TextBox1
TextBox1.Text = s.ToString
End Sub

Andrew

[Stephany Young]

For-next loops are the easiest but the the trick is to correctly fudge the
range (substitute 1 for 254 when the the last 2 nodes of the start address
are the same as the last 2 nodes of the end address).

Sub LoopAddressRang e(ByVal start As String, ByVal finish As String)

Dim _start As String() = start.Split("." c)

Dim _finish As String() = finish.Split(". "c)

If _start(2) = "1" AndAlso _finish(2) = "1" AndAlso _start(3) = "1"
AndAlso _finish(3) = "1" Then
_finish(2) = "254"
_finish(3) = "254"
End If

For _node0 As Integer = Integer.Parse(_ start(0)) To
Integer.Parse(_ finish(0))
For _node1 As Integer = Integer.Parse(_ start(1)) To
Integer.Parse(_ finish(1))
For _node2 As Integer = Integer.Parse(_ start(2)) To
Integer.Parse(_ finish(2))
For _node3 As Integer = Integer.Parse(_ start(3)) To
Integer.Parse(_ finish(3))
Console.Writeli ne("{0}.{1}.{2} .{3}", _node0, _node1, _node2,
_node3)
Next
Next
Next
Next

End Sub

LoopAddressRang e("172.16.1.1 ", "172.20.1.1 ")

LoopAddressRang e("172.16.1.1 ", "172.16.1.2 54")

LoopAddressRang e("172.16.1.5 ", "172.16.1.1 5")
"Andrew Morton" <ak*@in-press.co.uk.inv alidwrote in message
news:uJ******** ********@TK2MSF TNGP06.phx.gbl. ..

NetworkElf wrote:

>Does anyone have some code that shows an example of how to loop
through a range of IP addresses? I'm using text boxes to get a start
and end value for the range. I was thinking about using 4 nested
for-next loops, but I seem to be having trouble working out the logic
to validate the octets in the beginning and ending address so the
range works correctly.
i.e. 172.16.1.1/172.20.1.1 should loop 172-172,16-20,1-254,1-254
172.16.1.1/172.16.1.254 should loop 172-172,16-16,1-1,1-254
172.16.1.5/172.16.1.15 should loop 172-172,16-16,1-1,5-15

and so on...

Is there an easier way to do this without for-next loops?

Um, can't you convert them into simple numbers and use one loop from the
first to the last, converting each integer back into the four parts?
Private Function ippify(ByVal n As Int64) As String
Return (n >24).ToString & "." & ((n And &HFF0000) >16).ToString &
"." & ((n And &HFF00) >8).ToString & "." & (n And &HFF).ToStri ng
End Function

Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVa l sender As System.Object, ByVal e As
System.EventArg s) Handles MyBase.Load

Dim a1 As String = "1.2.3.1"
Dim a2 As String = "1.2.4.255"

Dim n1, n2 As Int64 ' I have no Uint32

' convert string representations of IP addresses to int64
Dim p() As String = a1.Split(".")
For i As Integer = 0 To UBound(p)
n1 = 256 * n1 + p(i)
Next
p = a2.Split(".")
For i As Integer = 0 To UBound(p)
n2 = 256 * n2 + p(i)
Next

' do something with the range of addresses
Dim s As New StringBuilder
For i As Int64 = n1 To n2
s.Append(ippify (i) & vbCrLf)
Next
' Assuming you have a textbox named TextBox1
TextBox1.Text = s.ToString
End Sub

Andrew