crstin – How to log your IP Address

Have you you ever thought: "Mhmmm… was that me behind that IP address at this particular point in time? I wish I'd know that because THAT WOULD HELP ME A LOT TO DETERMINE IF I HAVE AN ISSUE HERE OR NOT!"

Bash script

#!/bin/bash

ipcur=$(curl -s ipecho.net/plain)
if ! tail -n 1 ~/.cronjobs/iplog.csv | grep -q "$ipcur"; then
    {
    printf '%s;' "$(date "+%Y-%m-%d;%H:%M")";
    curl -s ipinfo.io/json | jq -r '.ip + ";"
    + .hostname + ";"
    + .city + ";"
    + .region + ";"
    + .country + ";"
    + .loc + ";"
    + .org + ";"
    + .postal + ";"';
    } >> ~/.cronjobs/iplog.csv
fi

This bash script checks the current external IP address. If the result differs from the previous, last used IP address it appends a new line with the specified values to the csv logfile. Theses values are:

Date
Time
IP
Hostname
City
Region
Country
Location
Organisation
Postal Code

You may ask yourself why there's two services, ipinfo.io and ipecho.net?
Under certain circumstances, i.e. when you're on a mobile connection, I've found ipecho to be faster and it's only querying a single value (the IP address) compared to the json block of ipinfo which contains multiple values. Though I admit I'm not sure if that even matters.

❯ time curl ipecho.net/plain;echo
0.00s user 0.00s system 0% cpu 2.317s total


❯ time curl -s ipinfo.io/104.161.79.83
{
  "ip": "104.161.79.83",
  "hostname": "No Hostname",
  "city": "Phoenix",
  "region": "Arizona",
  "country": "US",
  "loc": "33.4319,-112.0150",
  "org": "AS53755 Input Output Flood LLC",
  "postal": "85034"
}
0.00s user 0.01s system 0% cpu 2.572s total

Jealous of my latency? Probably not.

The Logfile

DATE	TIME	IP	HOSTNAME	CITY	REGION	CC	GPS	ORGANISATION	ZIP
2017-01-01	00:00	104.161.79.83	phoenix.crstin.com	Phoenix	Arizona	US	33.4319,-112.0150	AS53755 Input Output Flood LLC	85034
2017-01-02	08:45	8.8.8.8	google-public-dns-a.google.com	Mountain View	California	US	37.3860,-122.0838	AS15169 Google Inc.	9403
2017-01-03	19:30	67.215.92.218	No Hostname	Moraga	California	US	37.8381,-122.1026	AS36692 OpenDNS, LLC	9455
2017-01-04	10:30	179.60.192.36	edge-star-mini-shv-01-cdg2.facebook.com	Menlo Park	California	US	37.4590,-122.1781	AS32934 Facebook, Inc.	9402
2017-01-05	14:15	17.172.224.47	velocityengine.com	Cupertino	California	US	37.3230,-122.0322	AS714 Apple Inc.	9501
2017-01-06	11:00	213.186.33.5	redirect.ovh.net			FR	48.8582,2.3387	AS16276 OVH SA
2017-01-07	17:30	151.91.35.73	No Hostname	Turin	Piedmont	IT	45.0705,7.6868	AS12734 Fiat Information Technology, Excellence and Methods S.p.A.	1015
2017-01-08	13:45	194.153.110.160	No Hostname	Paris	Île-de-France	FR	48.9167,2.3833	AS49566 COMMUNE DE PARIS	9330

The above table is an illustration of what the logfile might look like.

CSV Headers

To enable csv headers, put this code on the first line of iplog.csv.

DATE;TIME;IP;HOSTNAME;CITY;REGION;COUNTRY;LOCATION;ORG;POSTAL;

Automate the script

Open crontab on the command line and add the cronjob in the editor.

❯ crontab -e

# ┌───────────── minute (0 - 59)
# │ ┌───────────── hour (0 - 23)
# │ │ ┌───────────── day of month (1 - 31)
# │ │ │ ┌───────────── month (1 - 12)
# │ │ │ │ ┌───────────── day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday to Saturday;
# │ │ │ │ │                                       7 is also Sunday)
# │ │ │ │ │
# │ │ │ │ │
# * * * * *  command to execute

*/15 *  *  *  *  source ~/.cronjobs/iplog.sh

In this case iplog.sh will be executed every 15 minutes.

System Setup and Services Used

macOS 10.12 Sierra
bash
crontab
ipinfo.io and ipecho.net