Finding local IP addresses using Python's stdlib

Question

How can I find local IP addresses (i.e. 192.168.x.x or 10.0.x.x) in Python platform independently and using only the standard library?

Answer 1

A version I do not believe that has been posted yet. I tested with python 2.7 on Ubuntu 12.04.

Found this solution at : http://code.activestate.com/recipes/439094-get-the-ip-address-associated-with-a-network-inter/

import socket
import fcntl
import struct

def get_ip_address(ifname):
    s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_DGRAM)
    return socket.inet_ntoa(fcntl.ioctl(
        s.fileno(),
        0x8915,  # SIOCGIFADDR
        struct.pack('256s', ifname[:15])
    )[20:24])

Example Result:

>>> get_ip_address('eth0')
'38.113.228.130'

Answer 2

If you're looking for an IPV4 address different from your localhost IP address 127.0.0.1, here is a neat piece of python codes:

import subprocess
address = subprocess.check_output(['hostname', '-s', '-I'])
address = address.decode('utf-8') 
address=address[:-1]

Which can also be written in a single line:

address = subprocess.check_output(['hostname', '-s', '-I']).decode('utf-8')[:-1]

Even if you put localhost in /etc/hostname, the code will still give your local IP address.

Answer 3

I just found this but it seems a bit hackish, however they say tried it on *nix and I did on windows and it worked.

import socket
s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_DGRAM)
s.connect(("8.8.8.8", 80))
print(s.getsockname()[0])
s.close()

This assumes you have an internet access, and that there is no local proxy.

Answer 4

On Linux:

>>> import socket, struct, fcntl
>>> sock = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
>>> sockfd = sock.fileno()
>>> SIOCGIFADDR = 0x8915
>>>
>>> def get_ip(iface = 'eth0'):
...     ifreq = struct.pack('16sH14s', iface, socket.AF_INET, '\x00'*14)
...     try:
...         res = fcntl.ioctl(sockfd, SIOCGIFADDR, ifreq)
...     except:
...         return None
...     ip = struct.unpack('16sH2x4s8x', res)[2]
...     return socket.inet_ntoa(ip)
... 
>>> get_ip('eth0')
'10.80.40.234'
>>> 

Answer 5

Note: This is not using the standard library, but quite simple.

$ pip install pif

from pif import get_public_ip
get_public_ip()

Answer 6

This method returns the "primary" IP on the local box (the one with a default route).

• Does NOT need routable net access or any connection at all.
• Works even if all interfaces are unplugged from the network.
• Does NOT need or even try to get anywhere else.
• Works with NAT, public, private, external, and internal IP's
• Pure Python 2 (or 3) with no external dependencies.
• Works on Linux, Windows, and OSX.

Python 3 or 2:

import socket
def get_ip():
    s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_DGRAM)
    try:
        # doesn't even have to be reachable
        s.connect(('10.255.255.255', 1))
        IP = s.getsockname()[0]
    except Exception:
        IP = '127.0.0.1'
    finally:
        s.close()
    return IP

This returns a single IP which is the primary (the one with a default route). If you need instead all IP's attached to all interfaces (including localhost, etc), see this answer.

If you are behind a NAT firewall like your wifi box at home, then this will not show your public NAT IP, but instead your private IP on the local network which has a default route to your local WIFI router; getting your wifi router's external IP would either require running this on THAT box, or connecting to an external service such as whatismyip.com/whatismyipaddress.com that could reflect back the IP... but that is completely different from the original question. :)