java.net
Class InetAddress

java.lang.Object
  |
  +--java.net.InetAddress

All Implemented Interfaces:

Serializable

Direct Known Subclasses:

Inet4Address, Inet6Address

public class InetAddress

extends Object

implements Serializable

This class represents an Internet Protocol (IP) address.

An IP address is either a 32-bit or 128-bit unsigned number used by IP, a lower-level protocol on which protocols like UDP and TCP are built. The IP address architecture is defined by RFC 790: Assigned Numbers, RFC 1918: Address Allocation for Private Internets, RFC 2365: Administratively Scoped IP Multicast, and RFC 2373: IP Version 6 Addressing Architecture. An instance of an InetAddress consists of an IP address and possibly its corresponding host name (depending on whether it is constructed with a host name or whether it has already done reverse host name resolution).

Address types

unicast

An identifier for a single interface. A packet sent to a unicast address is delivered to the interface identified by that address. The Unspecified Address -- Also called anylocal or wildcard address. It must never be assigned to any node. It indicates the absence of an address. One example of its use is as the target of bind, which allows a server to accept a client connection on any interface, in case the server host has multiple interfaces. The unspecified address must not be used as the destination address of an IP packet. The Loopback Addresses -- This is the address assigned to the loopback interface. Anything sent to this IP address loops around and becomes IP input on the local host. This address is often used when testing a client.

multicast

An identifier for a set of interfaces (typically belonging to different nodes). A packet sent to a multicast address is delivered to all interfaces identified by that address.

IP address scope

Link-local addresses are designed to be used for addressing on a single link for purposes such as auto-address configuration, neighbor discovery, or when no routers are present.

Site-local addresses are designed to be used for addressing inside of a site without the need for a global prefix.

Global addresses are unique across the internet.

Textual representation of IP addresses

The textual representation of an IP address is address family specific.

For IPv4 address format, please refer to Inet4Address#format; For IPv6 address format, please refer to Inet6Address#format.

Host Name Resolution

Host name-to-IP address resolution is accomplished through the use of a combination of local machine configuration information and network naming services such as the Domain Name System (DNS) and Network Information Service(NIS). The particular naming services(s) being used is by default the local machine configured one. For any host name, its corresponding IP address is returned.

Reverse name resolution means that for any IP address, the host associated with the IP address is returned.

The InetAddress class provides methods to resolve host names to their IP addresses and vise versa.

InetAddress Caching

The InetAddress class has a cache to store successful as well as unsuccessful host name resolutions. The positive caching is there to guard against DNS spoofing attacks; while the negative caching is used to improve performance.

By default, the result of positive host name resolutions are cached forever, because there is no general rule to decide when it is safe to remove cache entries. The result of unsuccessful host name resolution is cached for a very short period of time (10 seconds) to improve performance.

Under certain circumstances where it can be determined that DNS spoofing attacks are not possible, a Java security property can be set to a different Time-to-live (TTL) value for positive caching. Likewise, a system admin can configure a different negative caching TTL value when needed.

Two Java security properties control the TTL values used for positive and negative host name resolution caching:

networkaddress.cache.ttl (default: -1)

Indicates the caching policy for successful name lookups from the name service. The value is specified as as integer to indicate the number of seconds to cache the successful lookup.

A value of -1 indicates "cache forever".

networkaddress.cache.negative.ttl (default: 10)

Indicates the caching policy for un-successful name lookups from the name service. The value is specified as as integer to indicate the number of seconds to cache the failure for un-successful lookups.

A value of 0 indicates "never cache". A value of -1 indicates "cache forever".

Since:

JDK1.0

See Also:

getByAddress(byte[]), getByAddress(java.lang.String, byte[]), getAllByName(java.lang.String), getByName(java.lang.String), getLocalHost(), Serialized Form

Method Summary

boolean	equals(Object obj) Compares this object against the specified object.
byte[]	getAddress() Returns the raw IP address of this InetAddress object.
static InetAddress[]	getAllByName(String host) Given the name of a host, returns an array of its IP addresses, based on the configured name service on the system.
static InetAddress	getByAddress(byte[] addr) Returns an InetAddress object given the raw IP address .
static InetAddress	getByAddress(String host, byte[] addr) Create an InetAddress based on the provided host name and IP address No name service is checked for the validity of the address.
static InetAddress	getByName(String host) Determines the IP address of a host, given the host's name.
String	getCanonicalHostName() Gets the fully qualified domain name for this IP address.
String	getHostAddress() Returns the IP address string in textual presentation.
String	getHostName() Gets the host name for this IP address.
static InetAddress	getLocalHost() Returns the local host.
int	hashCode() Returns a hashcode for this IP address.
boolean	isAnyLocalAddress() Utility routine to check if the InetAddress in a wildcard address.
boolean	isLinkLocalAddress() Utility routine to check if the InetAddress is an link local address.
boolean	isLoopbackAddress() Utility routine to check if the InetAddress is a loopback address.
boolean	isMCGlobal() Utility routine to check if the multicast address has global scope.
boolean	isMCLinkLocal() Utility routine to check if the multicast address has link scope.
boolean	isMCNodeLocal() Utility routine to check if the multicast address has node scope.
boolean	isMCOrgLocal() Utility routine to check if the multicast address has organization scope.
boolean	isMCSiteLocal() Utility routine to check if the multicast address has site scope.
boolean	isMulticastAddress() Utility routine to check if the InetAddress is an IP multicast address.
boolean	isSiteLocalAddress() Utility routine to check if the InetAddress is a site local address.
String	toString() Converts this IP address to a String.

Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object

clone, finalize, getClass, notify, notifyAll, wait, wait, wait

Method Detail

isMulticastAddress

public boolean isMulticastAddress()

Utility routine to check if the InetAddress is an IP multicast address.

Returns:

a boolean indicating if the InetAddress is an IP multicast address

Since:

JDK1.1

isAnyLocalAddress

public boolean isAnyLocalAddress()

Utility routine to check if the InetAddress in a wildcard address.

Returns:

a boolean indicating if the Inetaddress is a wildcard address.

Since:

1.4

isLoopbackAddress

public boolean isLoopbackAddress()

Utility routine to check if the InetAddress is a loopback address.

Returns:

a boolean indicating if the InetAddress is a loopback address; or false otherwise.

Since:

1.4

isLinkLocalAddress

public boolean isLinkLocalAddress()

Utility routine to check if the InetAddress is an link local address.

Returns:

a boolean indicating if the InetAddress is a link local address; or false if address is not a link local unicast address.

Since:

1.4

isSiteLocalAddress

public boolean isSiteLocalAddress()

Utility routine to check if the InetAddress is a site local address.

Returns:

a boolean indicating if the InetAddress is a site local address; or false if address is not a site local unicast address.

Since:

1.4

isMCGlobal

public boolean isMCGlobal()

Utility routine to check if the multicast address has global scope.

Returns:

a boolean indicating if the address has is a multicast address of global scope, false if it is not of global scope or it is not a multicast address

Since:

1.4

isMCNodeLocal

public boolean isMCNodeLocal()

Utility routine to check if the multicast address has node scope.

Returns:

a boolean indicating if the address has is a multicast address of node-local scope, false if it is not of node-local scope or it is not a multicast address

Since:

1.4

isMCLinkLocal

public boolean isMCLinkLocal()

Utility routine to check if the multicast address has link scope.

Returns:

a boolean indicating if the address has is a multicast address of link-local scope, false if it is not of link-local scope or it is not a multicast address

Since:

1.4

isMCSiteLocal

public boolean isMCSiteLocal()

Utility routine to check if the multicast address has site scope.

Returns:

a boolean indicating if the address has is a multicast address of site-local scope, false if it is not of site-local scope or it is not a multicast address

Since:

1.4

isMCOrgLocal

public boolean isMCOrgLocal()

Utility routine to check if the multicast address has organization scope.

Returns:

a boolean indicating if the address has is a multicast address of organization-local scope, false if it is not of organization-local scope or it is not a multicast address

Since:

1.4

getHostName

public String getHostName()

Gets the host name for this IP address.

If this InetAddress was created with a host name, this host name will be remembered and returned; otherwise, a reverse name lookup will be performed and the result will be returned based on the system configured name lookup service. If a lookup of the name service is required, call getCanonicalHostName.

If there is a security manager, its checkConnect method is first called with the hostname and -1 as its arguments to see if the operation is allowed. If the operation is not allowed, it will return the textual representation of the IP address.

Returns:

the host name for this IP address, or if the operation is not allowed by the security check, the textual representation of the IP address.

See Also:

getCanonicalHostName(), SecurityManager.checkConnect(java.lang.String, int)

getCanonicalHostName

public String getCanonicalHostName()

Gets the fully qualified domain name for this IP address. Best effort method, meaning we may not be able to return the FQDN depending on the underlying system configuration.

If there is a security manager, this method first calls its checkConnect method with the hostname and -1 as its arguments to see if the calling code is allowed to know the hostname for this IP address, i.e., to connect to the host. If the operation is not allowed, it will return the textual representation of the IP address.

Returns:

the fully qualified domain name for this IP address, or if the operation is not allowed by the security check, the textual representation of the IP address.

Since:

1.4

See Also:

SecurityManager.checkConnect(java.lang.String, int)

getAddress

public byte[] getAddress()

Returns the raw IP address of this InetAddress object. The result is in network byte order: the highest order byte of the address is in getAddress()[0].

Returns:

the raw IP address of this object.

getHostAddress

public String getHostAddress()

Returns the IP address string in textual presentation.

Returns:

the raw IP address in a string format.

Since:

JDK1.0.2

hashCode

public int hashCode()

Returns a hashcode for this IP address.

Overrides:

hashCode in class Object

Returns:

a hash code value for this IP address.

See Also:

Object.equals(java.lang.Object), Hashtable

equals

public boolean equals(Object obj)

Compares this object against the specified object. The result is true if and only if the argument is not null and it represents the same IP address as this object.

Two instances of InetAddress represent the same IP address if the length of the byte arrays returned by getAddress is the same for both, and each of the array components is the same for the byte arrays.

Overrides:

equals in class Object

Parameters:

obj - the object to compare against.

Returns:

true if the objects are the same; false otherwise.

See Also:

getAddress()

toString

public String toString()

Converts this IP address to a String. The string returned is of the form: hostname / literal IP address. If the host name is unresolved, no reverse name service loopup is performed. The hostname part will be represented by an empty string.

Overrides:

toString in class Object

Returns:

a string representation of this IP address.

getByAddress

public static InetAddress getByAddress(String host,
                                       byte[] addr)
                                throws UnknownHostException

Create an InetAddress based on the provided host name and IP address No name service is checked for the validity of the address.

The host name can either be a machine name, such as "java.sun.com", or a textual representation of its IP address.

For host specified in literal IPv6 address, either the form defined in RFC 2732 or the literal IPv6 address format defined in RFC 2373 is accepted.

If addr specifies an IPv4 address an instance of Inet4Address will be returned; otherwise, an instance of Inet6Address will be returned.

IPv4 address byte array must be 4 bytes long and IPv6 byte array must be 16 bytes long

Parameters:

host - the specified host

addr - the raw IP address in network byte order

Returns:

an InetAddress object created from the raw IP address.

Throws:

UnknownHostException - if IP address is of illegal length

Since:

1.4

getByName

public static InetAddress getByName(String host)
                             throws UnknownHostException

Determines the IP address of a host, given the host's name.

The host name can either be a machine name, such as "java.sun.com", or a textual representation of its IP address. If a literal IP address is supplied, only the validity of the address format is checked.

For host specified in literal IPv6 address, either the form defined in RFC 2732 or the literal IPv6 address format defined in RFC 2373 is accepted.

Parameters:

host - the specified host, or null for the local host.

Returns:

an IP address for the given host name.

Throws:

UnknownHostException - if no IP address for the host could be found.

SecurityException - if a security manager exists and its checkConnect method doesn't allow the operation

getAllByName

public static InetAddress[] getAllByName(String host)
                                  throws UnknownHostException

Given the name of a host, returns an array of its IP addresses, based on the configured name service on the system.

The host name can either be a machine name, such as "java.sun.com", or a textual representation of its IP address. If a literal IP address is supplied, only the validity of the address format is checked.

For host specified in literal IPv6 address, either the form defined in RFC 2732 or the literal IPv6 address format defined in RFC 2373 is accepted.

If there is a security manager and host is not null and host.length() is not equal to zero, the security manager's checkConnect method is called with the hostname and -1 as its arguments to see if the operation is allowed.

Parameters:

host - the name of the host.

Returns:

an array of all the IP addresses for a given host name.

Throws:

UnknownHostException - if no IP address for the host could be found.

SecurityException - if a security manager exists and its checkConnect method doesn't allow the operation.

See Also:

SecurityManager.checkConnect(java.lang.String, int)

getByAddress

public static InetAddress getByAddress(byte[] addr)
                                throws UnknownHostException

Returns an InetAddress object given the raw IP address . The argument is in network byte order: the highest order byte of the address is in getAddress()[0].

This method doesn't block, i.e. no reverse name service lookup is performed.

IPv4 address byte array must be 4 bytes long and IPv6 byte array must be 16 bytes long

Parameters:

addr - the raw IP address in network byte order

Returns:

an InetAddress object created from the raw IP address.

Throws:

UnknownHostException - if IP address is of illegal length

Since:

1.4

getLocalHost

public static InetAddress getLocalHost()
                                throws UnknownHostException

Returns the local host.

If there is a security manager, its checkConnect method is called with the local host name and -1 as its arguments to see if the operation is allowed. If the operation is not allowed, an InetAddress representing the loopback address is returned.

Returns:

the IP address of the local host.

Throws:

UnknownHostException - if no IP address for the host could be found.

See Also:

SecurityManager.checkConnect(java.lang.String, int)