Compare Host Names

[pileofrogs]

Greeting Monks!

I'm sure this question has been asked and answered before but I can't find it. I apologize.

I want to compare two hostnames to see if they point to the same host/IP. I think I need to query DNS and follow any CNAMEs to get to an A record and an IP address.

This seems like something someone would have already written, but I haven't found it. I must be using the wrong search terms.

Because I rarely make sense, here's an example.

# pseudo code!  Not perl!
# 
# example.com = 192.168.0.10 
# www.example.com = CNAME example.com
# lungfish.example.com = 192.168.0.10 
# fruitbat.example.com = 192.168.0.12

compare_host_names('example.com','example.com) == true
compare_host_names('example.com','www.example.com) == true
compare_host_names('example.com','lungfish.example.com) == true
compare_host_names('example.com','fruitbat.example.com') == false

Someone has written something to do this, right? What is it called?

And for extra credit, what search terms should I have used?

Thanks!
--Pileofrogs

[Corion]

If doing serial lookups is enough for you, simply checking the results of gethostbyname should work, except for the problem of round-robin DNS.

As an alternative, the DNS modules (for example, AnyEvent::DNS) can do more lookups and in parallel. With those, you can possibly get all names for hostname entries, at least the synopsis of AnyEvent::DNS suggests so.

[pileofrogs]

Yeah, it just seems like my example compare_host_names() function would already exist. And it would probably handle round robin or other things I haven't thought of.

If it doesn't exist, I'm gonna write it.