How to Constrain HTTP Client's IP Address

Go's http.Client enables efficient HTTP requests, but how do you restrict its IP address if your system houses multiple NICs?

Customizing IP Binding

To bind the http.Client to a specific IP, modify its Transport field with an instance of net.Transport. This allows you to designate the net.Dialer to control the local address for connections.

Code Example

The code snippet below demonstrates how to bind the client to a specified local IP address:

import (
    "net"
    "net/http"
    "net/http/httputil"
    "time"
)

func main() {
    // Resolve the local IP address
    localAddr, err := net.ResolveIPAddr("ip", "")
    if err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }

    // Create a TCPAddr instance to specify the local address without specifying a port
    localTCPAddr := net.TCPAddr{
        IP: localAddr.IP,
    }

    // Create an HTTP client with a custom transport that specifies the local address
    webclient := &http.Client{
        Transport: &http.Transport{
            Proxy:                 http.ProxyFromEnvironment,
            DialContext:          (&net.Dialer{
                LocalAddr:      &localTCPAddr,
                Timeout:       30 * time.Second,
                KeepAlive:     30 * time.Second,
                DualStack:     true,
            }).DialContext,
            MaxIdleConns:          100,
            IdleConnTimeout:       90 * time.Second,
            TLSHandshakeTimeout:   10 * time.Second,
            ExpectContinueTimeout: 1 * time.Second,
        },
    }

    // Execute an HTTP request using the customized client
    req, _ := http.NewRequest("GET", "http://www.google.com", nil)
    resp, _ := webclient.Do(req)
    defer resp.Body.Close()
    
    // Optionally, use httputil to get the status code and response body
    code, _ := httputil.DumpResponse(resp, true)
    fmt.Println(code)
}

By using this approach, you can specify the IP address used by the HTTP client's connections. This allows you to control the outgoing IP for networking flexibility.