This is my lean and effective way to monitor your public IP address with Python, specifically Python3. The script – code and GitHub link below – runs on a continuous loop, which I covered in a previous post: here.

NOTE: this code is reliant on the dig system command – so this essentially only work on a unix based system. I was running this on a Debian install.

import os
import subprocess
import re
import time

print("start monitor vpn monitor check")

expected_IP: "0.0.0.0" # ENTER YOUR EXPECTED PUBLIC IPv4 ADDRESS HERE

current_IP: subprocess.check_output("dig +short myip.opendns.com @resolver1.opendns.com", shell=True)

try:
    while True:
        if expected_IP in str(current_IP):
            print("IPs Match - Things are normal")
        else:
            print("Current IP: " + str(current_IP) + "\nIP NOT AS EXPECTED!")
            #Code to complete actions called here
        time.sleep(60) # Change this timer to reduce/increase time between checks (seconds)
except KeyboardInterrupt:
    print("\nHard Exit Initiated. Goodbye!")

https://github.com/Tombo1001/PyIPmonitor

Alternative uses

There are a number of use cases for this code, mine was checking if my computer is still connected to a VPN. Monitor my public IP address meant that I could tell if the VPN had disconnected.

Monitor your public IP address with Python - monitoring openvpn connection. Checking my IP matches my VPN endpoint IP The only thing that was changed here from the current repository code is the print statements – the output just matches the context of the code’s use.

More python snippets

Here are some links to some of my other python code samples: