How can I ping a server port with PHP?

In case the OP really wanted an ICMP-Ping, there are some proposals within the User Contributed Notes to socket_create() [link], which use raw sockets. Be aware that on UNIX like systems root access is required.

Update: note that the usec argument has no function on windows. Minimum timeout is 1 second.

In any case, this is the code of the top voted ping function:

function ping($host, $timeout = 1) {
    /* ICMP ping packet with a pre-calculated checksum */
    $package = "\x08\x00\x7d\x4b\x00\x00\x00\x00PingHost";
    $socket  = socket_create(AF_INET, SOCK_RAW, 1);
    socket_set_option($socket, SOL_SOCKET, SO_RCVTIMEO, array('sec' => $timeout, 'usec' => 0));
    socket_connect($socket, $host, null);
    $ts = microtime(true);
    socket_send($socket, $package, strLen($package), 0);
    if (socket_read($socket, 255)) {
        $result = microtime(true) - $ts;
    } else {
        $result = false;
    }
    socket_close($socket);
    return $result;
}

Test different ports:

$wait = 1; // wait Timeout In Seconds
$host = 'example.com';
$ports = [
    'http'  => 80,
    'https' => 443,
    'ftp'   => 21,
];

foreach ($ports as $key => $port) {
    $fp = @fsockopen($host, $port, $errCode, $errStr, $wait);
    echo "Ping $host:$port ($key) ==> ";
    if ($fp) {
        echo 'SUCCESS';
        fclose($fp);
    } else {
        echo "ERROR: $errCode - $errStr";
    }
    echo PHP_EOL;
}


// Ping example.com:80 (http) ==> SUCCESS
// Ping example.com:443 (https) ==> SUCCESS
// Ping example.com:21 (ftp) ==> ERROR: 110 - Connection timed out

I think the answer to this question pretty much sums up the problem with your question.

If what you want to do is find out whether a given host will accept TCP connections on port 80, you can do this:

$host = '193.33.186.70'; 
$port = 80; 
$waitTimeoutInSeconds = 1; 
if($fp = fsockopen($host,$port,$errCode,$errStr,$waitTimeoutInSeconds)){   
   // It worked 
} else {
   // It didn't work 
} 
fclose($fp);

For anything other than TCP it will be more difficult (although since you specify 80, I guess you are looking for an active HTTP server, so TCP is what you want). TCP is sequenced and acknowledged, so you will implicitly receive a returned packet when a connection is successfully made. Most other transport protocols (commonly UDP, but others as well) do not behave in this manner, and datagrams will not be acknowledged unless the overlayed Application Layer protocol implements it.

The fact that you are asking this question in this manner tells me you have a fundamental gap in your knowledge on Transport Layer protocols. You should read up on ICMP and TCP, as well as the OSI Model.

Also, here's a slightly cleaner version to ping to hosts.

// Function to check response time
function pingDomain($domain){
    $starttime = microtime(true);
    $file      = fsockopen ($domain, 80, $errno, $errstr, 10);
    $stoptime  = microtime(true);
    $status    = 0;

    if (!$file) $status = -1;  // Site is down
    else {
        fclose($file);
        $status = ($stoptime - $starttime) * 1000;
        $status = floor($status);
    }
    return $status;
}

Try this :

echo exec('ping -n 1 -w 1 72.10.169.28');