Hostname Validator

Zend\Validator\Hostname allows you to validate a hostname against a set of known specifications. It is possible to check for three different types of hostnames: a DNS Hostname (i.e. domain.com), IP address (i.e. 1.2.3.4), and Local hostnames (i.e. localhost). By default, only DNS hostnames are matched.

Supported options

The following options are supported for Zend\Validator\Hostname:

• allow: Defines the sort of hostname which is allowed to be used. See below for details.
• idn: Defines if IDN domains are allowed or not. This option defaults to true.
• ip: Allows defining a custom IP validator. This option defaults to a new instance of Zend\Validator\Ip.
• tld: Defines if TLDs are validated. This option defaults to true.

Basic usage

$validator = new Zend\Validator\Hostname();

if ($validator->isValid($hostname)) {
    // hostname appears to be valid
} else {
    // hostname is invalid; print the reasons
    foreach ($validator->getMessages() as $message) {
        echo "$message\n";
    }
}

This will match the hostname $hostname and on failure populate getMessages() with useful error messages.

Validating different types of hostnames

You may find you also want to match IP addresses, Local hostnames, or a combination of all allowed types. This can be done by passing a parameter to Zend\Validator\Hostname when you instantiate it. The parameter should be an integer which determines what types of hostnames are allowed. You are encouraged to use the Zend\Validator\Hostname constants to do this.

The Zend\Validator\Hostname constants are:

• ALLOW_DNS, to allow only DNS hostnames
• ALLOW_IP to allow IP addresses
• ALLOW_LOCAL to allow local network names
• ALLOW_URI to allow RFC3986-compliant addresses
• ALLOW_ALL to allow all four above types

Additional Information on ALLOW_URI

ALLOW_URI allows checking hostnames according to RFC3986. These are registered names which are used by WINS, NetInfo and also local hostnames like those defined within your hosts file.

To check for IP addresses only, you can use the example below:

use Zend\Validator\Hostname;

$validator = new Hostname(Hostname::ALLOW_IP);

if ($validator->isValid($hostname)) {
    // hostname appears to be valid
} else {
    // hostname is invalid; print the reasons
    foreach ($validator->getMessages() as $message) {
        echo "$message\n";
    }
}

As well as using ALLOW_ALL to accept all common hostnames types, you can combine these types to allow for combinations. For example, to accept DNS and Local hostnames:

use Zend\Validator\Hostname;

$validator = new Hostname(Hostname::ALLOW_DNS | Hostname::ALLOW_IP);

Validating International Domains Names

Some Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs), such as 'de' (Germany), support international characters in domain names. These are known as International Domain Names (IDN). These domains can be matched by Zend\Validator\Hostname via extended characters that are used in the validation process.

At the time of writing, more than 50 ccTLDs support IDN domains.

The Hostname validator matches IDN domains by default. If you wish to disable IDN validation, either pass a parameter to the Zend\Validator\Hostname constructor or call the setValidateIdn() method.

You can disable IDN validation by passing a second parameter to the Zend\Validator\Hostname constructor in the following way.

$validator = new Zend\Validator\Hostname([
    'allow' => Zend\Validator\Hostname::ALLOW_DNS,
    'useIdnCheck'   => false,
]);

Alternatively you can either pass true or false to setValidateIdn() to enable or disable IDN validation. If you are trying to match an IDN hostname which isn't currently supported, it is likely it will fail validation if it has any international characters in it. Where a ccTLD file doesn't exist in Zend/Validator/Hostname specifying the additional characters, a normal hostname validation is performed.

Please note that IDNs are only validated if you allow DNS hostnames to be validated.

Validating Top Level Domains

By default, a hostname will be verified against a list of known TLDs. If this functionality is not required, it can be disabled in much the same way as disabling IDN support. You can disable TLD validation by passing a third parameter to the Zend\Validator\Hostname constructor. In the example below we are supporting IDN validation via the second parameter.

use Zend\Validator\Hostname;

$validator = new Hostname([
    'allow' => Hostname::ALLOW_DNS,
    'useIdnCheck'   => true,
    'useTldCheck'   => false,
]);

Alternatively you can either pass true or false to setValidateTld() to enable or disable TLD validation.

Please note, TLDs are only validated if you allow DNS hostnames to be validated.