[vox-tech] getting IP address in C

[Michael Wenk]

On Wednesday 16 April 2003 05:59 am, Ryan wrote:
> My machine has two IPs I guess. 127.0.0.1 and 64.167.231.194.
> I want to be able to detect the 64.167.231.194.
>
> Here is what I ended up doing to solve the problem
>
>         /*detecting hostname and ip*/
>         printf("Getting hostname....\n");
>         gethostname(hostname, 256);
>         printf("Found %s... sound good to you?\n", hostname);
>
>         printf("Getting IP Address now...\n");
>         h_entry = gethostbyname(hostname);
>         if(h_entry == 0) crash("gethostbyname()");
>
>         printf("Aha! found %s\n", inet_ntoa(*((struct in_addr
> *)h_entry->h_addr)));
>         inet_aton(h_entry->h_addr, &adr_server.sin_addr);
>
>         len_inet = sizeof(adr_server);
>         /*************************/
>



The biggest problem is when your system has multiple adresses(And I don't 
include the loopback address.)  You see this when you have systems with 
virtual hosts, or multi homed systems(My own system is an example of this.)  

For example my local system: 
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:04:5A:87:08:07
          inet addr:10.0.0.1  Bcast:10.0.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:728145 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:662645 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
          RX bytes:118078376 (112.6 Mb)  TX bytes:454448771 (433.3 Mb)
          Interrupt:11 Base address:0xe000

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:A0:CC:29:F0:D3
          inet addr:12.209.95.93  Bcast:255.255.255.255  Mask:255.255.254.0
          UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:3237857 errors:1 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:3
          TX packets:636079 errors:3 dropped:0 overruns:3 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
          RX bytes:622292879 (593.4 Mb)  TX bytes:88681685 (84.5 Mb)
          Interrupt:11 Base address:0xe400

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:37759 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:37759 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:4609422 (4.3 Mb)  TX bytes:4609422 (4.3 Mb)

There are three adresses, and the name of the system doesn't directly map to 
any of the systems addresses.  Since the last time I had to do anything even 
near this, I was programming a tool on HP-UX which implements an extension to 
the standard library, I must admit I am clueless.  So, I went and checked the 
source.  Apparently, ifconfig reads /proc/net/dev for a list of 
interfaces(plus some stats), and then goes thru and runs some ioctls(and 
possibly other stuff) to determine what the address is on them.  Im not sure 
if this is what you were looking for or not.  If you're ok with your program 
as is, then great.  Just remember that depending on the system you are on may 
change, and if it does and is more convoluted in configuration, your program 
may be invalid.  Its a PITA, but hey, its life. 



Mike
-- 
wenk@praxis.homedns.org
Mike Wenk