Python get machine name

4 Ways To Get Hostname Using Python

Python has many applications in the networking field. Developers often use it as a medium to communicate with others on your network. Between these communications, it’s important to get the hostname in Python.

Python Get Hostname is a way to fetch the device name or alias within the network either by using its IP or domain. Hostnames generally refer to the names of the devices which can be used to further distinguish between them. Moreover, you can also get the name of the host where your Python interpreter is running.

What is a Hostname?

The hostname is an identifying name/alias which is maybe unique to every device connected over a network node. This hostname can be completely unique and can be used to differentiate between devices. Usually, the combinations of ascii characters are used as Hostname, but it may vary depending on the network.

In many cases, if the device hostnames are changed forcefully, two or more devices can have the same Hostname. Even tho they have the same hostname, but they can have different MAC addresses.

Ways to Get Hostname in Python

There are several ways to get a hostname in Python by using modules. Each of these modules has different ways of functioning and can behave differently on different operating systems. Some of them might work perfectly in Linux and not in Windows or vice versa. Make sure you check them on all platforms before implementing them in your code.

Following are some fo the ways you can get hostname –

1. Socket gethostname Function

import socket print(socket.gethostname())

Explanation:

Socket module is one of the most important networking modules in Python. You can communicate with sockets and connect to other devices using them. In the above example, we imported the socket module in the first line and then used the function gethostname() to get the Hostname of the device. This function will return the device hostname where the python code is interpreted.

2. Platform Module

import platform print(platform.node())

Explanation:

Similar to the socket module, the platform module is a widely used module to access platform information. This information includes host names, IP, Operating system, and much other information. We imported the platform in the first-line and then called the node() function to get the device’s hostname. Node function returns the computer hostname if available.

3. Os Module

import os, platform if platform.system() == "Windows": print(platform.uname().node) else: print(os.uname()[1]) # doesnt work on windows

Explanation:

You might’ve seen os module used in handling files and directories in python, but it can also be used to get the device name. uname() is the function that returns the hostname of the system. Unfortunately, this cannot be used on Windows devices, and you have to use and if clause for it to work.

4. Using socket gethostbyaddr Function

import socket print(socket.gethostbyaddr(socket.gethostname())[0])

Explanation:

Using gethostbyaddr will take care of the hostnames which are linked to their IPs. Normally, on a local network, it’ll return the same hostname passed as a parameter, but on remote networks, it can return the remote hostnames (It’s mentioned in the next sections).

Get Hostname from URL in Python

Many times, you need to access the domain names from the URLs you have. This can be done in many ways in Python by using Regex, urllib, string splitting, or other modules. All of them work most of the time, but urllib is optimal to work all the time because it’s from the networking module and is present by default. So you don’t have to code anything fancy for it.

urlparse url = urlparse('https://www.pythonpool.com/for-vs-while-loop-python/' ) host = ':///'.format(uri=url) print(host)
 
Explanation:
 
We first start by importing urlparse from the urllib parser. This can be used to parse the URLs into understandable strings. As soon as we initialize urlparse() with a URL, it’ll break down the URL into scheme, netloc, params, query, and fragment. Then we can use the scheme and netlock to get the protocol and hostnames from the URL.
 
Get Hostname from IP in Python
 
Sometimes, you have the IP addresses in your code results. Then by using them, you can easily deduce the hostnames of the servers. But importantly, your IP should be working and reachable by your network. In the following example, I’ve used 8.8.8.8 as IP, which is Google’s DNS.
 
 
 
import socket print(socket.gethostbyaddr("8.8.8.8"))
 
Explanation:
 
We start by importing the socket module and then calling the gethostbyaddr function. Then you can pass the IP as a string to it. It returns (hostname, alias list, IP Address List) as a tuple. Then you can access the hostname by using tuple indexing.
 
See Also
 
References
 
 
socket.gethostname(): Return a string containing the hostname of the machine where the Python interpreter is currently executing.
 
socket.gethostbyaddr(): Return a triple (hostname, aliaslist, ipaddrlist).
 
platform.node(): Returns the computer’s network name (may not be fully qualified!). An empty string is returned if the value cannot be determined.
 
 
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Python Get Hostname
 
 
Python is one of the most popular and widely adopted programming languages of the modern age. And for a good reason, it is a free, open-source high-level programming language that offers simple and minimal syntax.
 
It simplifies many complex features making it very user-friendly and easy to adopt. Hence, you will not be surprised to hear that Python is an excellent language for automation, as depicted by Ansible’s reliance on it.
 
One of the easiest and best parts to automate is networking. Therefore, in this tutorial, we will show you how to fetch the hostname of a system using various Python modules.
 
What is a Hostname?
 
A hostname refers to the name given to a device to identify it in a local network. Hostnames make it easy for machines to communicate within a network.
 
In Windows, you can get the hostname of a device using the command:
 
 
You can also use the same command on Linux to fetch the hostname of your device.
 
 
In Python, we can use various techniques and methods to get the hostname of a machine.
 
Let us discuss these methods and how to use them.
 
Method 1 – Python Socket Module
 
One of the most influential networking modules for Python is the socket module. It provides us with low-level networking features that can be exported across systems.
 
To find the hostname using the socket module, we will use the gethostname() function.
 
The function syntax is as shown:
 
The function does not take any parameters.
 
It then returns a string holding the machine’s hostname where the interpreter is installed.
 
To use it, start by importing the socket module:
 
Next, call the socket.gethostname() function as:
 
host = socket . gethostname ( ) ;
 
In the example above, we save the hostname in a variable that we can use later.
 
Method 2 – Python OS Module
 
The os module provides us with the functionality to interact with the operating system. For example, we can use this module’s uname() function to determine the system’s hostname.
 
The function syntax is as shown:
 
Similarly, the function does not take any parameters. It then returns an object comprised of five attributes, namely:
 
 
sysname – the name of the operating system.
 
nodename – the name of the machine on the network or hostname.
 
release – the OS release.
 
version – the OS version
 
machine – the hardware identifier.
 
 
To use it, we can start by importing the uname function from the os module
 
We can then use the uname function to get the system details:
 
The function should retain the object holding the system information as:
 
posix . uname_result ( sysname = ‘Linux’ , nodename = ‘master’ , release = ‘5.10.102.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2’ , version = ‘#1 SMP Wed Mar 2 00:30:59 UTC 2022’ , machine = ‘x86_64’ )
 
NOTE that the uname() function only works on Unix Systems. For Windows systems, check the second method below.
 
To get only the hostname, we can access the second element in the object using index notation as:
 
This should return only the hostname of the machine.
 
Method 3 – Python OS Module (getnev)
 
As mentioned, the uname() function will fail on Windows systems. However, you can use the getenv() function and pass the target key.
 
The function syntax is as shown:
 
The function will then return the value of the environment variable associated with the specified key.
 
Windows has an environment called “COMPUTERNAME’ which holds the machine’s hostname.
 
 
We can use this environment variable as the key to the getnev() function as:
 
print ( os . getenv ( ‘COMPUTERNAME’ ) )
 
The code above should return the hostname of the machine as a string.
 
In Linux, substitute the key from ‘COMPUTERNANE’ to ‘NAME’.
 
Method 4 – Python Platform Module
 
Python has another great module that enables us to fetch the hostname of a machine. The platform allows us to gather facts about a platform, such as networking, os, interpreters, and more.
 
To fetch the hostname of a machine using the platform module, we can use the node() function.
 
Typically, the function does not take any parameters. It then returns the hostname of the current machine as a string.
 
Let us start by importing the node function:
 
from platform import node
 
Then , use it to fetch the hostname as :
 
from platform import node
 
The function works on both Windows and Unix systems.
 
Method 5 – Get Hostname From IP
 
In some cases, you may need to fetch the hostname of a given IP address. We use the gethostbyaddr() function from the socket module.
 
The function syntax is as shown:
 
The function accepts the IP address as the argument in string type and returns the information about the IP address.
 
The function returns information such as hostname, aliaslist, and ipaddrlist as a tuple. We can then use tuple indexing to get the hostname of the IP.
 
The good thing about this function is that it supports both IPv4 and IPv6.
 
An example code is as shown:
 
from socket import gethostbyaddr
 
print ( «IPv4:» , gethostbyaddr ( «1.1.1.1» ) [ 0 ] )
 
print ( «IPv6:» , gethostbyaddr ( «2606:4700:4700::1111» ) [ 0 ] )
 
Here, we are fetching the hostname of two IP addresses, one in IPv4 and the other in IPv6.
 
The resulting values are as shown:
 
As you can see from the output above, the function is able to resolve the hostname of both IP addresses.
 
Conclusion
 
In this tutorial, we explored five methods you can use to fetch the hostname of a machine using Python. Please choose the one that works for you and stick with it.
 
About the author
 
John Otieno
 
My name is John and am a fellow geek like you. I am passionate about all things computers from Hardware, Operating systems to Programming. My dream is to share my knowledge with the world and help out fellow geeks. Follow my content by subscribing to LinuxHint mailing list
 
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