Getting IPV4 address from a sockaddr structure

Question

How can I extract an IP address into a string? I can\'t find a reference that tells me how char sa_data[14] is encoded.

Answer 1

Emil's answer is correct, but it's my understanding that inet_ntoa is deprecated and that instead you should use inet_ntop. If you are using IPv4, cast your struct sockaddr to sockaddr_in. Your code will look something like this:

struct addrinfo *res;   // populated elsewhere in your code
struct sockaddr_in *ipv4 = (struct sockaddr_in *)res->ai_addr;
char ipAddress[INET_ADDRSTRLEN];
inet_ntop(AF_INET, &(ipv4->sin_addr), ipAddress, INET_ADDRSTRLEN);

printf("The IP address is: %s\n", ipAddress);

Take a look at this great resource for more explanation, including how to do this for IPv6 addresses.

Answer 2

inet_ntoa() works for IPv4; inet_ntop() works for both IPv4 and IPv6.

Given an input struct sockaddr *res, here are two snippets of code (tested on macOS):

Using inet_ntoa()

#include <arpa/inet.h>

struct sockaddr_in *addr_in = (struct sockaddr_in *)res;
char *s = inet_ntoa(addr_in->sin_addr);
printf("IP address: %s\n", s);

Using inet_ntop()

#include <arpa/inet.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

char *s = NULL;
switch(res->sa_family) {
    case AF_INET: {
        struct sockaddr_in *addr_in = (struct sockaddr_in *)res;
        s = malloc(INET_ADDRSTRLEN);
        inet_ntop(AF_INET, &(addr_in->sin_addr), s, INET_ADDRSTRLEN);
        break;
    }
    case AF_INET6: {
        struct sockaddr_in6 *addr_in6 = (struct sockaddr_in6 *)res;
        s = malloc(INET6_ADDRSTRLEN);
        inet_ntop(AF_INET6, &(addr_in6->sin6_addr), s, INET6_ADDRSTRLEN);
        break;
    }
    default:
        break;
}
printf("IP address: %s\n", s);
free(s);

Answer 3

Just cast the entire sockaddr structure to a sockaddr_in. Then you can use:

char *ip = inet_ntoa(their_addr.sin_addr)

To retrieve the standard ip representation.

Answer 4

You can use getnameinfo for Windows and for Linux.

Assuming you have a good (i.e. it's members have appropriate values) sockaddr* called pSockaddr:

char clienthost[NI_MAXHOST];  //The clienthost will hold the IP address.
char clientservice[NI_MAXSERV];
int theErrorCode = getnameinfo(pSockaddr, sizeof(*pSockaddr), clienthost, sizeof(clienthost), clientservice, sizeof(clientservice), NI_NUMERICHOST|NI_NUMERICSERV);

if( theErrorCode != 0 )
{
    //There was an error.
    cout << gai_strerror(e1) << endl;
}else{
    //Print the info.
    cout << "The ip address is = " << clienthost << endl;
    cout << "The clientservice = " << clientservice << endl;
}

Answer 5

Once sockaddr cast to sockaddr_in, it becomes this:

struct sockaddr_in {
    u_short     sin_family;
    u_short     sin_port;
    struct      in_addr sin_addr;
    char        sin_zero[8];
};

Answer 6

Type casting of sockaddr to sockaddr_in and retrieval of ipv4 using inet_ntoa

char * ip = inet_ntoa(((struct sockaddr_in *)sockaddr)->sin_addr);