[vox-tech] Getting next-closest hostname for an IP address

[Bill Kendrick]

I have a problem which I'm hoping one of the networking gurus out here can
help me with.

I'm trying to determine the hostname of a system that's one step closer to
me than the IP address I have in my hand.  The IP address I have is temporary
and unnamed (FYI, it's a cellphone), so "host", "nslookup" and "resolveip"
all fail.

To explain graphically:

  [My server] -> ... -> ... -> [Wireless provider] -> [Cellphone]

I have the IP address of the cellphone, but it has no hostname.
So I'm hoping to be able to get the hostname of some machine in the
wireless provider's network, so I can determine who the carrier is.

If I do a "traceroute" or "mtr" on the IP address, for example, I can see
that the last few hops are "###.sub-##-###-##.myvzw.com".  From that
I can determine, "oh, 'myvzw.com'... must be Verizon."

But is there a tool I can use that can get this information?
(I need it fairly quickly, and in a format easy for pulling in via a
script -- I need to get this information _while_ responding to the phone
when it connects to my server.  It would be simiar to "gethostbyaddr($IP)"
or calling `host $IP` in PHP, except it'd get the name of the next hop up.)


Thanks!

-bill!
bill at newbreedsoftware.com                            New Breed Software
http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/       Tux Paint 0.9.14 -- Coming soon!