Can I perform a DNS lookup (hostname to IP address

Question

I would like to use client-side Javascript to perform a DNS lookup (hostname to IP address) as seen from the client's computer. Is that possible?

Answer 1

Doing this would require to break the browser sandbox. Try to let your server do the lookup and request that from the client side via XmlHttp.

Answer 2

As many people said you need to use an external service and call it. And that will only get you the DNS resolution from the server perspective.

If that's good enough and if you just need DNS resolution you can use the following Docker container:

https://github.com/kuralabs/docker-webaiodns

Endpoints:

[GET] /ipv6/[domain]: Perform a DNS resolution for given domain and return the associated IPv6 addresses.

 {
     "addresses": [
         "2a01:91ff::f03c:7e01:51bd:fe1f"
     ]
 }

[GET] /ipv4/[domain]: Perform a DNS resolution for given domain and return the associated IPv4 addresses.

 {
     "addresses": [
         "139.180.232.162"
     ]
 }

My recommendation is that you setup your web server to reverse proxy to the container on a particular endpoint in your server serving your Javascript and call it using your standard Javascript Ajax functions.

Answer 3

Firefox has a built-in API for this since v60, for WebExtensions:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/dns/resolve

Answer 4

If the client has Java installed, you could do something like this:

ipAddress = java.net.InetAddress.getLocalHost().getHostAddress();

Other than that, you will probably have to use a server side script.

Answer 5

There's a third-party service which provides a CORS-friendly REST API to perform DNS lookups from the browser - https://exana.io/tools/dns/

Answer 6

Very late, but I guess many people will still land here through "Google Airlines". A moderm approach is to use WebRTC that doesn't require server support.

https://hacking.ventures/local-ip-discovery-with-html5-webrtc-security-and-privacy-risk/

Next code is a copy&paste from http://net.ipcalf.com/

// NOTE: window.RTCPeerConnection is "not a constructor" in FF22/23
var RTCPeerConnection = /*window.RTCPeerConnection ||*/ window.webkitRTCPeerConnection || window.mozRTCPeerConnection;

if (RTCPeerConnection) (function () {
    var rtc = new RTCPeerConnection({iceServers:[]});
    if (window.mozRTCPeerConnection) {      // FF needs a channel/stream to proceed
        rtc.createDataChannel('', {reliable:false});
    };  

    rtc.onicecandidate = function (evt) {
        if (evt.candidate) grepSDP(evt.candidate.candidate);
    };  
    rtc.createOffer(function (offerDesc) {
        grepSDP(offerDesc.sdp);
        rtc.setLocalDescription(offerDesc);
    }, function (e) { console.warn("offer failed", e); }); 


    var addrs = Object.create(null);
    addrs["0.0.0.0"] = false;
    function updateDisplay(newAddr) {
        if (newAddr in addrs) return;
        else addrs[newAddr] = true;
        var displayAddrs = Object.keys(addrs).filter(function (k) { return addrs[k]; }); 
        document.getElementById('list').textContent = displayAddrs.join(" or perhaps ") || "n/a";
    }   

    function grepSDP(sdp) {
        var hosts = []; 
        sdp.split('\r\n').forEach(function (line) { // c.f. http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4566#page-39
            if (~line.indexOf("a=candidate")) {     // http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4566#section-5.13
                var parts = line.split(' '),        // http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5245#section-15.1
                    addr = parts[4],
                    type = parts[7];
                if (type === 'host') updateDisplay(addr);
            } else if (~line.indexOf("c=")) {       // http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4566#section-5.7
                var parts = line.split(' '), 
                    addr = parts[2];
                updateDisplay(addr);
            }   
        }); 
    }   
})(); else {
    document.getElementById('list').innerHTML = "<code>ifconfig | grep inet | grep -v inet6 | cut -d\" \" -f2 | tail -n1</code>";
    document.getElementById('list').nextSibling.textContent = "In Chrome and Firefox your IP should display automatically, by the power of WebRTCskull.";
}