How to get client host name in bottle python? - python-3.x

Question

from bottle import Bottle, request
import socket
app = Bottle()
my_ip = socket.gethostbyname(socket.gethostname())
#app.route('/hello')
def hello():
client_ip = request.environ.get('REMOTE_ADDR')
print("Client IP is ", client_ip)
#Code to read client hostname or machine name
return ['Your IP is: {}\n'.format(client_ip)]
app.run(host=my_ip, port=8080)
I am using the bottle(WSGI micro web-framework for Python). I know how to get IP of the client who requested the service. But I also want to know the hostname(machine name) of the client as well.
I tried reading hostname with windows commands like nbtstat & ping but they are not 100% reliable. Are there any other options available?

Answer 1

A couple of things:
You're probably better off not doing this at all. Instead, consider logging all the IP addresses to a file (better yet, do nothing and simply use an existing access_log) and then resolving them, offline, in batch.
If you do insist on resolving the IP addresses inline, you don't need to call out to Windows commands in order to do it. It'll be a lot faster, simper, and more robust to resolve the addresses in-process. I've included some sample code for you below.
Finally, I'd like to address your comment:
I tried... but they are not 100% reliable
That is a problem with your expectation, not with your DNS resolver. Reverse DNS lookups will inherently yield far less than 100% matches.
Here's the sample code to do the reverse lookup in Python. Good luck!
from socket import gethostbyaddr, herror
def resolve_address(addr):
'''
Resolve the ip address string ``addr`` and return its DNS name. If no name
is found, return None.
Raises any exceptions thrown by gethostbyaddr, except for NOTFOUND (which
is handled by returning None).
NOTE: Illustrative purposes only, not for production use.
'''
try:
record = gethostbyaddr(addr)
except herror as exc:
if exc.errno == 1:
print(f'no name found for address "{addr}"')
return None
else:
print(f'an error occurred while resolving {addr}: {exc}')
raise
print(f'the name of "{addr}" is: {record[0]}')
return record[0]
assert resolve_address('151.236.216.85') == 'li560-85.members.linode.com'
assert resolve_address('10.1.1.1') is None