So you have a String that is retrieved from an admin web UI (so it is definitely a String). How can you find out whether this string is an IP address or a hostname in Java?
Update: I think I didn't make myself clear, I was more asking if there is anything in the Java SDK that I can use to distinguish between IPs and hostnames? Sorry for the confusion and thanks for everybody who took/will take the time to answer this.
You can use a regular expression with this pattern:
\b(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\\.(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\\.(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\\.(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\b
That will tell you if it's an IPv4 address.
You can see if the string matches the number.number.number.number format, for example:
\b\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\b
will match anything from 0 - 999.
Anything else you can have it default to hostname.
Do we get to make the assumption that it is one or the other, and not something completely different? If so, I'd probably use a regex to see if it matched the "dotted quad" format.
It is not as simple as it may appear, there are some ambiguities around characters like hyphens, underscore, and square brackets '-', '_', '[]'.
The Java SDK is has some limitations in this area. When using InetAddress.getByName it will go out onto the network to do a DNS name resolution and resolve the address, which is expensive and unnecessary if all you want is to detect host vs address. Also, if an address is written in a slightly different but valid format (common in IPv6) doing a string comparison on the results of InetAddress.getByName will not work.
The IPAddress Java library will do it. The javadoc is available at the link. Disclaimer: I am the project manager.
static void check(HostName host) {
try {
host.validate();
if(host.isAddress()) {
System.out.println("address: " + host.asAddress());
} else {
System.out.println("host name: " + host);
}
} catch(HostNameException e) {
System.out.println(e.getMessage());
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
HostName host = new HostName("1.2.3.4");
check(host);
host = new HostName("1.2.a.4");
check(host);
host = new HostName("::1");
check(host);
host = new HostName("[::1]");
check(host);
host = new HostName("1.2.?.4");
check(host);
}
Output:
address: 1.2.3.4
host name: 1.2.a.4
address: ::1
address: ::1
1.2.?.4 Host error: invalid character at index 4
URI validator = new URI(yourString);
That code will validate the IP address or Hostname. (It throws a malformed URI Exception if the string is invalid)
If you are trying to distinguish the two..then I miss read your question.
You can use a security manager with the InetAddress.getByName(addr) call.
If the addr is not a dotted quad, getByName will attempt to perform a connect to do the name lookup, which the security manager can capture as a checkConnect(addr, -1) call, resulting in a thrown SecurityException that you can catch.
You can use System.setSecurityManager() if you're running fully privileged to insert your custom security manager before the getByName call is made.
Use InetAddress#getAllByName(String hostOrIp) - if hostOrIp is an IP-address the result is an array with single InetAddress and it's .getHostAddress() returns the same string as hostOrIp.
import java.net.InetAddress;
import java.net.UnknownHostException;
import java.util.Arrays;
public class IPvsHostTest {
private static final org.slf4j.Logger LOG = org.slf4j.LoggerFactory.getLogger(IPvsHostTest.class);
@org.junit.Test
public void checkHostValidity() {
Arrays.asList("10.10.10.10", "google.com").forEach( hostname -> isHost(hostname));
}
private void isHost(String ip){
try {
InetAddress[] ips = InetAddress.getAllByName(ip);
LOG.info("IP-addresses for {}", ip);
Arrays.asList(ips).forEach( ia -> {
LOG.info(ia.getHostAddress());
});
} catch (UnknownHostException e) {
LOG.error("Invalid hostname", e);
}
}
}
The output:
IP-addresses for 10.10.10.10
10.10.10.10
IP-addresses for google.com
64.233.164.100
64.233.164.138
64.233.164.139
64.233.164.113
64.233.164.102
64.233.164.101
This code still performs the DNS lookup if a host name is specified, but at least it skips the reverse lookup that may be performed with other approaches:
...
isDottedQuad("1.2.3.4");
isDottedQuad("google.com");
...
boolean isDottedQuad(String hostOrIP) throws UnknownHostException {
InetAddress inet = InetAddress.getByName(hostOrIP);
boolean b = inet.toString().startsWith("/");
System.out.println("Is " + hostOrIP + " dotted quad? " + b + " (" + inet.toString() + ")");
return b;
}
It generates this output:
Is 1.2.3.4 dotted quad? true (/1.2.3.4)
Is google.com dotted quad? false (google.com/172.217.12.238)
Do you think we can expect the toString() behavior to change anytime soon?
