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I need to get the host name currently running the application. Any idea?

peterh
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Beginner_Pal
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5 Answers5

99

Something to bear in mind is that System.Environment.MachineName; and System.Windows.Forms.SystemInformation.ComputerName; will give you the NETBIOS name of the machine (restricted to 15 characters).

If you want the full TCP/IP based host name you can use Dns.GetHostName():

string hostName = System.Net.Dns.GetHostName();

Or you can use:

System.Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("COMPUTERNAME");

Which will return the full computer name set during installation.

djdd87
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    Well, the docs are a bit vague on how it's implemented, but it is implied that it requires a) a working network connection, b) a round-trip to the DNS server, and c) that the DNS actually knows your machine name (it doesn't have to, unless your a server) – James Curran Aug 16 '10 at 16:09
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    @James Curran - Absolutely. But Environment.MachineName restricts the computer name to a 15 character NETBIOS name. GetHostName will retrieve the full TCP/IP based hostname. – djdd87 Aug 16 '10 at 16:21
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    `System.Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("COMPUTERNAME");` is Windows only – gman Jan 28 '16 at 03:10
  • Will this still work if the code is running on IIS? What will it return? something like "www.mySiteAddress.com" ?? – AleX_ Aug 04 '17 at 19:42
35

Unless I am mistaken on what you want to do..

System.Environment.MachineName
Wil
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10

To get fully qualified name, use:

 System.Net.Dns.GetHostEntry("").HostName
Dynamic
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4

The My namespace contains many great "helper" functions like: 

My.Computer.Name
Nathan
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System.Windows.Forms.SystemInformation.ComputerName;
Nobody
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    Looks like this one also gets the NetBIOS name, so the same as `System.Environment.MachineName` and avoiding a potentially awkward System.Windows.Forms situation. – Jonas Aug 16 '22 at 11:47