Get ec2 private ip

ec2_function.py

import os


def is_ec2_linux():
    """Detect if we are running on an EC2 Linux Instance
       See http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/identify_ec2_instances.html
    """
    if os.path.isfile("/sys/hypervisor/uuid"):
        with open("/sys/hypervisor/uuid") as f:
            uuid = f.read()
            return uuid.startswith("ec2")
    return False


def get_linux_ec2_private_ip():
    """Get the private IP Address of the machine if running on an EC2 linux server"""
    from urllib.request import urlopen
    if not is_ec2_linux():
        return None
    try:
        response = urlopen('http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/local-ipv4')
        ec2_ip = response.read().decode('utf-8')
        if response:
            response.close()
        return ec2_ip
    except Exception as e:
        print(e)
        return None

What are this lines doing?

       response = urlopen('http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/local-ipv4')
        ec2_ip = response.read().decode('utf-8')

What are this lines doing?

       response = urlopen('http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/local-ipv4')
        ec2_ip = response.read().decode('utf-8')

@bastiW
It's getting aws ec2 instance private IP address.
I'm using for backend server health check with elb.

ref:Retrieving Metadata
ref:Instance Metadata