Question

I was wondering if there is a way to get the computer name in Java? I have seen several answers that feature java.net.InetAddress. However I was wondering if there is a way that does not use the network?

(As a side question, is the computer name only a network thing anyway, so therefore has to be done this way??)

Answer 1

The computer “name” is resolved from the IP address by the underlying DNS (Domain Name System) library of the OS. There’s no universal concept of a computer name across OSes, but DNS is generally available. If the computer name hasn’t been configured so DNS can resolve it, it isn’t available.

import java.net.InetAddress;
import java.net.UnknownHostException;

String hostname = "Unknown";

try
{
    InetAddress addr;
    addr = InetAddress.getLocalHost();
    hostname = addr.getHostName();
}
catch (UnknownHostException ex)
{
    System.out.println("Hostname can not be resolved");
}