Find interface associated with default route?

[Neal Becker]

Neal Becker wrote:

> Fredrik Lundh wrote:
> 
>> Neal Becker wrote:
>> 
>>> Any thoughts on howto find the interface associated with the default
>>> route (this is on linux)?
>> 
>> are you sure you sent this to the right newsgroup ?
>> 
>> is this what you want ?
>> 
>>  >>> import os
>>  >>> for line in os.popen("/sbin/route"):
>> ...     line = line.split()
>> ...     if line[0] == "default":
>> ...             print line[-1]
>> ...
>> eth0
>> 
> 
> Well, I was hoping for something more 'elegant' - meaning relying on
> library
> calls rather than calling programs.  Obviously, /sbin/route has some
> library calls to obtain this info, and maybe python has a wrapper for it.
> 
> Yes, this is the right group - I want a python solution.
> 

A quick strace reveals that 'route' just reads /proc/net/route, so:

def get_default_if():
    f = open ('/proc/net/route', 'r')
    for line in f:
        words = string.split (line)
        dest = words[1]
        try:
            if (int (dest) == 0):
                interf = words[0]
                break
        except ValueError:
            pass
    return interf