How to determine an incoming connection is from local machine

Question

I have a SocketServer accepting incoming connections. For security reasons I should only allow local connections (connections from the machine on which server is running).

How can I determine if an incoming connection is from another machine? Is the following code safe for this?

Socket socket = someServerSocket.accept();
String remoteAddress = socket .getInetAddress().getHostAddress();
if (!fromThisMachine(remoteAddress)) {
    // Not from this machine.
}

while fromThisMachine() method is like this:

public boolean fromThisMachine(String remoteAddress) {
    try {
        Enumeration<NetworkInterface> interfaces = NetworkInterface.getNetworkInterfaces();
        while (interfaces.hasMoreElements()) {
            NetworkInterface networkInterface = interfaces.nextElement();
            Enumeration<InetAddress> addresses = networkInterface.getInetAddresses();
            while (addresses.hasMoreElements()) {
                InetAddress inetAddress = addresses.nextElement();
                String hostName = inetAddress.getHostName();
                String hostAddr = inetAddress.getHostAddress();
                if (hostName.equals(remoteAddress) || hostAddr.equals(remoteAddress)) {
                    return true;
                }
            }
        }
    } catch (Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
        return false;
    }
    log("Unauthorized request to server from: " + remoteAddress);
    return false;
}

Thanks, Mohsen

Answer 1

InetAddress.getByName( null ) always returns the loopback address. See the javadoc

    int port = .....
    SocketAddress socketAddress =
        new InetSocketAddress( InetAddress.getByName( null ), port);
    ServerSocket serverSocket = new ServerSocket();
    serverSocket.bind(socketAddress);
    serverSocket.accept();

Answer 2

If you want to limit connections from the localhost, then specify that when you open the ServerSocket. If you only listen on localhost, then you'll only get connections from localhost.

    int port = .....
    SocketAddress socketAddress = new InetSocketAddress("127.0.0.1", port);
    ServerSocket serverSocket = new ServerSocket();
    serverSocket.bind(socketAddress);
    serverSocket.accept();

Answer 3

Thanks skaffman. The following code worked with a little manipulation (hard-coding 127.0.0.1).

int port = .....
SocketAddress socketAddress = new InetSocketAddress("127.0.0.1", port);
ServerSocket serverSocket = new ServerSocket();
serverSocket.bind(socketAddress);
serverSocket.accept();

If I read local address from InetAddress.getLocalHost(), other network users on the same subnet are still able to see my server.

Mohsen.