Question

How do you determine which network interface is connected to the internet using Java? For example, I run

InetAddress.getLocalHost().getHostAddress();

and within Eclipse this returns exactly what I intend, 192.168.1.105. However, if I package this into a jar file and run the program, the code returns 169.254.234.50. Looking into this, I found this is the IP address of a VMware Virtual Ethernet Adapter interface on my machine.

Is there any way to determine the interface connected to the internet, yet at the same time maintain portability for my code?

Comparison of Interfaces

Interface [net4]

display name  : Intel(R) Centrino(R) Ultimate-N 6300 AGN
MTU           : 1500
loopback      : false
point to point: false
up            : true
virtual       : false
multicast     : true
HW address    : 00 24 D7 2C 5F 70 
INET address (IPv4): 192.168.1.105
  host name           : MyComputer
  canonical host name : MyComputer
  loopback            : false
  site local          : true
  any local           : false
  link local          : false
  multicast           : false
  reachable           : true

Interface [eth5]

display name  : VMware Virtual Ethernet Adapter for VMnet1
MTU           : 1500
loopback      : false
point to point: false
up            : true
virtual       : false
multicast     : true
HW address    : 00 50 56 C0 00 01 
INET address (IPv4): 169.254.234.50
  host name           : MyComputer
  canonical host name : MyComputer
  loopback            : false
  site local          : false
  any local           : false
  link local          : true
  multicast           : false
  reachable           : true

There’s a third VMware interface with site local=true and link local=false, so those fields aren’t any help either.

Answer 1

On my laptop (running Windows 7, with Virtual Box and it’s network interface installed) the following code prints out the name of my wireless interface along with my local address. It uses a brute force approach at the end of the day, but will only try and actually connect to addresses that are considered to be the best candidates.

// iterate over the network interfaces known to java
Enumeration<NetworkInterface> interfaces = NetworkInterface.getNetworkInterfaces();
OUTER : for (NetworkInterface interface_ : Collections.list(interfaces)) {
  // we shouldn't care about loopback addresses
  if (interface_.isLoopback())
    continue;

  // if you don't expect the interface to be up you can skip this
  // though it would question the usability of the rest of the code
  if (!interface_.isUp())
    continue;

  // iterate over the addresses associated with the interface
  Enumeration<InetAddress> addresses = interface_.getInetAddresses();
  for (InetAddress address : Collections.list(addresses)) {
    // look only for ipv4 addresses
    if (address instanceof Inet6Address)
      continue;

    // use a timeout big enough for your needs
    if (!address.isReachable(3000))
      continue;

    // java 7's try-with-resources statement, so that
    // we close the socket immediately after use
    try (SocketChannel socket = SocketChannel.open()) {
      // again, use a big enough timeout
      socket.socket().setSoTimeout(3000);

      // bind the socket to your local interface
      socket.bind(new InetSocketAddress(address, 8080));

      // try to connect to *somewhere*
      socket.connect(new InetSocketAddress("google.com", 80));
    } catch (IOException ex) {
      ex.printStackTrace();
      continue;
    }

    System.out.format("ni: %s, ia: %s\n", interface_, address);

    // stops at the first *working* solution
    break OUTER;
  }
}

_{(I’ve updated my answer with isReachable(...) based on Mocker Tim’s answer.)}

One thing to watch out for. socket.bind(...) would bark at me that the address and port is already in use if I tried to run my code too fast in succession like the connection isn’t cleaned up fast enough. 8080 should be a random port maybe.