ipaddr.js — an IPv6 and IPv4 address manipulation library

ipaddr.js is a small (1.9K minified and gzipped) library for manipulating
IP addresses in JavaScript environments. It runs on both CommonJS runtimes
(e.g. [nodejs]) and in a web browser.

ipaddr.js allows you to verify and parse string representation of an IP
address, match it against a CIDR range or range list, determine if it falls
into some reserved ranges (examples include loopback and private ranges),
and convert between IPv4 and IPv4-mapped IPv6 addresses.

[nodejs]: http://nodejs.org

Installation

npm install ipaddr.js

API

ipaddr.js defines one object in the global scope: ipaddr. In CommonJS,
it is exported from the module:

``js
var ipaddr = require('ipaddr.js');
`

The API consists of several global methods and two classes: ipaddr.IPv6 and ipaddr.IPv4.

$3

There are three global methods defined: ipaddr.isValid, ipaddr.parse and
ipaddr.process. All of them receive a string as a single parameter.

The ipaddr.isValid method returns true if the address is a valid IPv4 or
IPv6 address, and false otherwise. It does not throw any exceptions.

The ipaddr.parse method returns an object representing the IP address,
or throws an Error if the passed string is not a valid representation of an
IP address.

The ipaddr.process method works just like the ipaddr.parse one, but it
automatically converts IPv4-mapped IPv6 addresses to their IPv4 couterparts
before returning. It is useful when you have a Node.js instance listening
on an IPv6 socket, and the net.ivp6.bindv6only sysctl parameter (or its
equivalent on non-Linux OS) is set to 0. In this case, you can accept IPv4
connections on your IPv6-only socket, but the remote address will be mangled.
Use ipaddr.process method to automatically demangle it.

$3

Parsing methods return an object which descends from ipaddr.IPv6 or
ipaddr.IPv4. These objects share some properties, but most of them differ.

#### Shared properties

One can determine the type of address by calling addr.kind(). It will return
either "ipv6" or "ipv4".

An address can be converted back to its string representation with addr.toString().
Note that this method:
* does not return the original string used to create the object (in fact, there is
no way of getting that string)
* returns a compact representation (when it is applicable)

A match(range, bits) method can be used to check if the address falls into a
certain CIDR range.
Note that an address can be (obviously) matched only against an address of the same type.

For example:

`js
var addr = ipaddr.parse("2001:db8:1234::1");
var range = ipaddr.parse("2001:db8::");

addr.match(range, 32); // => true
`

A range() method returns one of predefined names for several special ranges defined
by IP protocols. The exact names (and their respective CIDR ranges) can be looked up
in the source: [IPv6 ranges] and [IPv4 ranges]. Some common ones include "unicast"
(the default one) and "reserved".

You can match against your own range list by using
ipaddr.subnetMatch(address, rangeList, defaultName) method. It can work with both
IPv6 and IPv4 addresses, and accepts a name-to-subnet map as the range list. For example:

`js
var rangeList = {
documentationOnly: [ ipaddr.parse('2001:db8::'), 32 ],
tunnelProviders: [
[ ipaddr.parse('2001:470::'), 32 ], // he.net
[ ipaddr.parse('2001:5c0::'), 32 ] // freenet6
]
};
ipaddr.subnetMatch(ipaddr.parse('2001:470:8:66::1'), rangeList, 'unknown'); // => "he.net"
`

The addresses can be converted to their byte representation with toByteArray().
(Actually, JavaScript mostly does not know about byte buffers. They are emulated with
arrays of numbers, each in range of 0..255.)

`js
var bytes = ipaddr.parse('2a00:1450:8007::68').toByteArray(); // ipv6.google.com
bytes // => [42, 0x00, 0x14, 0x50, 0x80, 0x07, 0x00, , 0x00, 0x68 ]
`

The ipaddr.IPv4 and ipaddr.IPv6 objects have some methods defined, too. All of them
have the same interface for both protocols, and are similar to global methods.

ipaddr.IPvX.isValid(string) can be used to check if the string is a valid address
for particular protocol, and ipaddr.IPvX.parse(string) is the error-throwing parser.

[IPv6 ranges]: https://github.com/whitequark/ipaddr.js/blob/master/src/ipaddr.coffee#L186
[IPv4 ranges]: https://github.com/whitequark/ipaddr.js/blob/master/src/ipaddr.coffee#L71

#### IPv6 properties

Sometimes you will want to convert IPv6 not to a compact string representation (with
the :: substitution); the toNormalizedString() method will return an address where
all zeroes are explicit.

For example:

`js
var addr = ipaddr.parse("2001:0db8::0001");
addr.toString(); // => "2001:db8::1"
addr.toNormalizedString(); // => "2001:db8:0:0:0:0:0:1"
`

The isIPv4MappedAddress() method will return true if this address is an IPv4-mapped
one, and toIPv4Address() will return an IPv4 object address.

To access the underlying binary representation of the address, use addr.parts.

`js
var addr = ipaddr.parse("2001:db8:10::1234:DEAD");
addr.parts // => [0x2001, 0xdb8, 0x10, 0, 0, 0, 0x1234, 0xdead]
`

#### IPv4 properties

toIPv4MappedAddress() will return a corresponding IPv4-mapped IPv6 address.

To access the underlying representation of the address, use addr.octets.

`js
var addr = ipaddr.parse("192.168.1.1");
addr.octets // => [192, 168, 1, 1]
``