How to resolve hostname to IP address within a shell script

Create straightforward shell script to resolve hostname to IPv4/IPv6 address and reuse parts of it for other projects.

Shell script

Store the following self-explanatory shell script.

#!/bin/bash
# Resolve hostname to IP address
# https://sleeplessbeastie.eu/2018/10/29/how-to-resolve-hostname-to-ip-address-within-a-shell-script/

# define local or remote DNS server
dns_server="208.67.222.123"

# function to get IP address
function get_ip {
  ip_address=""
  if [ -n "$1" ]; then
    hostname="${1}"
    if [ -z "$dns_server" ]; then
      # use primary Google DNS server if it is not provided
      dns_server="8.8.8.8"
    fi

    if [ -z "query_type" ]; then
      # query A record for IPv4  by default, use AAAA for IPv6
      query_type="A"
    fi
    # check
    host -t ${query_type}  ${hostname} &>/dev/null ${dns_server}
    if [ "$?" -eq "0" ]; then
      # get
      ip_address="$(host -t ${query_type} ${hostname} ${dns_server} | awk '/has.*address/ {print $NF; exit}')"
    else
      exit 1
    fi
  else
    exit 2
  fi
  echo $ip_address
}

# main
hostname="${1}"
for query in "A-IPv4" "AAAA-IPv6"; do
  query_type="$(echo $query | cut -d- -f 1)"
  ipversion="$(echo $query | cut -d- -f 2)"

  address="$(get_ip ${hostname})"
  if [ "$?" -eq "0" ]; then
    if [ -n "${address}" ]; then
      echo "Host ${hostname} has ${ipversion} address $address"
    fi
  else
    echo "There was some kind of error"
  fi
done

Sample usage

IPv4/IPv6 address for sleeplessbeastie.eu

$ getip.sh sleeplessbeastie.eu

Host sleeplessbeastie.eu has IPv4 address 84.16.240.28
Host sleeplessbeastie.eu has IPv6 address 2a00:c98:2060:a000:1:0:ca7:a

IPv4/IPv6 address for blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu

$ getip.sh blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu

Host blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu has IPv4 address 84.16.240.28
Host blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu has IPv6 address 2a00:c98:2060:a000:1:0:ca7:b

IPv4/IPv6 address for debian.org

$ getip.sh debian.org

Host debian.org has IPv4 address 149.20.4.15
Host debian.org has IPv6 address 2001:67c:2564:a119::148:14

IPv4/IPv6 address for kali.org

$ getip.sh kali.org

Host kali.org has IPv4 address 192.124.249.10