Python: get default gateway for a local interface/ip address in linux

Question

On Linux, how can I find the default gateway for a local ip address/interface using python?

I saw the question \"How to get internal IP, external IP and default gate

Answer 1

For completeness (and to expand on alastair's answer), here is an example that uses "netifaces" (tested under Ubuntu 10.04, but this should be portable):

$ sudo easy_install netifaces
Python 2.6.5 (r265:79063, Oct  1 2012, 22:04:36)
...
$ ipython
...
In [8]: import netifaces
In [9]: gws=netifaces.gateways()
In [10]: gws
Out[10]:
{2: [('192.168.0.254', 'eth0', True)],
 'default': {2: ('192.168.0.254', 'eth0')}}
In [11]: gws['default'][netifaces.AF_INET][0]
Out[11]: '192.168.0.254'

Documentation for 'netifaces': https://pypi.python.org/pypi/netifaces/