[regex] Validating IPv4 addresses with regexp

This one matches only valid IPs (no prepended 0's, but it will match octets from 0-255 regardless of their 'function' [ie reserved, private, etc]) and allows for inline matching, where there may be spaces before and/or after the IP, or when using CIDR notation.

grep -E '(^| )((([1-9]?[0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5]))\.){3}([1-9]?[0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])($| |/)'

$ grep -E '(^| )((([1-9]?[0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5]))\.){3}([1-9]?[0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])($| |/)' <<< '10.0.1.2'
10.0.1.2

$ grep -E '(^| )((([1-9]?[0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5]))\.){3}([1-9]?[0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])($| |/)' <<< 'ip address 10.0.1.2'
ip address 10.0.1.2

$ grep -E '(^| )((([1-9]?[0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5]))\.){3}([1-9]?[0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])($| |/)' <<< 'ip address 10.0.1.2 255.255.255.255'
ip address 10.0.1.2 255.255.255.255

$ grep -E '(^| )((([1-9]?[0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5]))\.){3}([1-9]?[0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])($| |/)' <<< 'ip address 10.0.1.2/32'
ip address 10.0.1.2/32

$ grep -E '(^| )((([1-9]?[0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5]))\.){3}([1-9]?[0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])($| |/)' <<< 'ip address 10.0.1.2.32'
$

$ grep -E '(^| )((([1-9]?[0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5]))\.){3}([1-9]?[0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])($| |/)' <<< 'ip address10.0.1.2'
$

$ grep -E '(^| )((([1-9]?[0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5]))\.){3}([1-9]?[0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])($| |/)' <<< '10.0.1.256'
$

$ grep -E '(^| )((([1-9]?[0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5]))\.){3}([1-9]?[0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])($| |/)' <<< '0.0.0.0'
0.0.0.0

$ grep -E '(^| )((([1-9]?[0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5]))\.){3}([1-9]?[0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])($| |/)' <<< '255.255.255.255'
255.255.255.255

$ grep -E '(^| )((([1-9]?[0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5]))\.){3}([1-9]?[0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])($| |/)' <<< '255.255.255.256'
$

Of course, in cases where the IP is inline, you can use grep option "-o" and your preference of whitespace trimmer if you just want the whole IP and nothing but the IP.

For those of us using python, the equivalent is roughly:

>>> ipv4_regex = re.compile(r'(^| )((?:[1-9]?\d|1\d{2}|2[0-4]\d|25[0-5])\.){3}(?:[1-9]?\d|1\d{2}|2[0-4]\d|25[0-5])($| |/)')
>>> ipv4_regex.search('ip address 10.1.2.3/32')
<re.Match object; span=(10, 20), match=' 10.1.2.3/'>

If you're picky (lazy) like me, you probably would prefer to use grouping to get the whole IP and nothing but the IP, or the CIDR and nothing but the CIDR or some combination thereof. We can use (?P) syntax to name our groups for easier reference.

>>> ipv4_regex = re.compile(r'(?:^| )(?P<address>((?:[1-9]?\d|1\d{2}|2[0-4]\d|25[0-5])\.){3}(?:[1-9]?\d|1\d{2}|2[0-4]\d|25[0-5]))(?P<slash>/)?(?(slash)(?P<cidr>[0-9]|[12][0-9]|3[0-2]))(?:$| )')
>>> match = ipv4_regex.search('ip address 10.0.1.2/32')
>>> match.group('address')
'10.0.1.2'
>>> match.group('cidr')
'32'
>>> "".join((match.group('address'), match.group('slash'), match.group('cidr')))
'10.0.1.2/32'

There's ways of not using just regex, of course. Here's some conditions that you could check (this one doesn't find inline, just validates the passed address is valid).

First check is that each char in the address is a digit or a '.'

Next checking that there are exactly 3 '.'

The next two checks check that each octet is between 0 and 255.

And the last check is that no octets are prepended with a '0'

def validate_ipv4_address(address):
    return all(re.match('\.|\d', c) for c in address) \
        and address.count('.') == 3 \
        and all(0 <= int(octet) <= 255 for octet in address.split('.')) \
        and all((len(bin(int(octet))) <= 10 for octet in address.split('.'))) \
        and all(len(octet) == 1 or d[0] != '0' for octet in address.split('.'))


>>> validate_ipv4_address('255.255.255.255')
True
>>> validate_ipv4_address('10.0.0.1')
True
>>> validate_ipv4_address('01.01.01.01')
False
>>> validate_ipv4_address('123.456.789.0')
False
>>> validate_ipv4_address('0.0.0.0')
True
>>> validate_ipv4_address('-1.0.0.0')
False
>>> validate_ipv4_address('1.1.1.')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "<stdin>", line 4, in validate_ipv4_address
  File "<stdin>", line 4, in <genexpr>
ValueError: invalid literal for int() with base 10: ''
>>> validate_ipv4_address('.1.1.1')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "<stdin>", line 4, in validate_ipv4_address
  File "<stdin>", line 4, in <genexpr>
ValueError: invalid literal for int() with base 10: ''
>>> validate_ipv4_address('1..1.1')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "<stdin>", line 4, in validate_ipv4_address
  File "<stdin>", line 4, in <genexpr>
ValueError: invalid literal for int() with base 10: ''

(bitwise, each octet should be 8 bits or less, but each is prepended with '0b')

>>> bin(0)
'0b0'
>>> len(bin(0))
3
>>> bin(255)
'0b11111111'
>>> len(bin(256))
11