Getting a machine's external IP address with Python

Question

Looking for a better way to get a machines current external IP #... Below works, but would rather not rely on an outside site to gather the information ... I am restricted to using standard Python 2.5.1 libraries bundled with Mac OS X 10.5.x

import os
import urllib2

def check_in():

    fqn = os.uname()[1]
    ext_ip = urllib2.urlopen('http://whatismyip.org').read()
    print ("Asset: %s " % fqn, "Checking in from IP#: %s " % ext_ip)

Answer 1

I liked the http://ipify.org. They even provide Python code for using their API.

# This example requires the requests library be installed.  You can learn more
# about the Requests library here: http://docs.python-requests.org/en/latest/
from requests import get

ip = get('https://api.ipify.org').content.decode('utf8')
print('My public IP address is: {}'.format(ip))

Answer 2

Python3, using nothing else but the standard library

As mentioned before, one can use an external service like ident.me in order to discover the external IP address of your router.

Here is how it is done with python3, using nothing else but the standard library:

import urllib.request

external_ip = urllib.request.urlopen('https://ident.me').read().decode('utf8')

print(external_ip)

Both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses can be returned, based on availability and client preference; use https://v4.ident.me/ for IPv4 only, or https://v6.ident.me/ for IPv6 only.