Using a RegEx to match IP addresses in Python

Using regex to validate IP address is a bad idea - this will pass 999.999.999.999 as valid. Try this approach using socket instead - much better validation and just as easy, if not easier to do.

import socket

def valid_ip(address):
    try: 
        socket.inet_aton(address)
        return True
    except:
        return False

print valid_ip('10.10.20.30')
print valid_ip('999.10.20.30')
print valid_ip('gibberish')

If you really want to use parse-the-host approach instead, this code will do it exactly:

def valid_ip(address):
    try:
        host_bytes = address.split('.')
        valid = [int(b) for b in host_bytes]
        valid = [b for b in valid if b >= 0 and b<=255]
        return len(host_bytes) == 4 and len(valid) == 4
    except:
        return False

You have to modify your regex in the following way

pat = re.compile("^\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}$")

that's because . is a wildcard that stands for "every character"

regex for ip v4:

^((25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\\.){3}(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)$

otherwise you take not valid ip address like 999.999.999.999, 256.0.0.0 etc