Finding Your IP Address

Note: This documentation assumes you already know what an IP address is, see here for more information on IP addresses.

Finding Your Local IP Address (broadband) or Global IP Address (dialup)

Windows 98 And Above

Go to Start
Click on Run
Type cmd and hit enter (use command in Win98)
Type ipconfig and hit enter

It will say something like

 Windows IP Configuration

 Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection Network Connection:
 Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
 IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.102 <-your IP address
 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1     <-your system Gateway

If you are on broadband, or use a network modem or your internet connection is not through your current PC, that IP is a local ip. Meaning, that is the IP my router gave me, not the IP the world sees. This means that the address is only specific to me in my local network.

If you use dialup with a modem on your current computer, that will be your external IP.

Windows XP

You can double click on the two computers on the task bar at the lower right hand corner also known as your Local Area Connection. Once that opens you can see the status of your local area connection as well as the activity of it. The status referring to whether or not it's connected, how long it has been connected, and the speed of the connection. The activity referring to the number of packets sent and received. Then you click the Support tab. The support tab shows you your IP address, the address type, subnet mask and default gateway if you have one. You can also click details. Details shows you your Physical (MAC) address, IP address, the subnet mask address, the address for your DHCP server, your DNS server as well as when you obtained the lease for your IP address and when it expires.

Windows VISTA

Click Start --> Control Panel--> Network and Internet--> Network and Sharing Center
In the left side pane select the fifth option Manage Network Connections.
In the new window right click Local Area Connection (or Wireless Network connection in case your connected to the net via wireless).
Select the second option Status and in the Local Area Connection Status dialog click the Details button.
The Network Connection Details window will appears with Property and Value.
In that you can find the fifth property as IPv4 Address and a value similar to this format 192.168.1.2.
That's the IP address.

Windows 7

Click on Windows Logo -->Control Panel --> Network and Internet --> Network and Sharing Center.
In the left side pane select the second option "Change Adapter Settings".
In the new window right click "Local Area Connection" (or Wireless Network connection in case your connected to the net via wireless).
Right click on the appropriate connection and select the third option Status.
In the new "Local Area Connection Status" dialog click the "Details" button.
The "Network Connection Details" window will appears with Property and Value.
In that you can find the fifth property as IPv4 Address and a value similar to this format 192.168.1.2.
That's the IP address.

Another simple way is to use a little tool at:http://www.softpedia.com/get/Network-Tools/IP-Tools/JMCNSOFT-My-IP.shtml

MAC OS X LION

Click the Apple icon that is located on the top left hand side.
From the menu select the option "System Preferences..."
Select Network under the heading Internet & Wireless (Internet & Network in 10.5).

WIRELESS

If Connected via Wi-Fi(Airport in 10.5), select that option from the left.
In the right, you can find a message reading something similar to this

"Wi-Fi is connected to NETWORK1 and has the IP address 192.168.
 1.2"

Where NETWORK1 is the network you are currently connected to and the 192.168.1.2 is the "IP ADDRESS".

WIRED

Select the Ethernet option from the left.
In the right you can find IP Address : 192.168.1.2

Linux

In Linux the are two commands that are used to find IP addresses of the machines interfaces. These are the new ip command that is used for almost all configuration of networks and the old obsoleted ifconfig command. Most installations of Linux has both of them installed, but some only have the new command.

Open a Terminal/Console
Type ip address show or ifconfig
Look for inet 192.168.1.2/24 resp. inet addr:192.168.1.2

where the 192.168.1.2 is your machines IPv4 address in your LAN.

[user@wikibooks]$ ip add show dev eth0
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:80:C8:F8:4A:51 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 192.168.99.35  Bcast:192.168.99.255 scope global eth0
    inet6 fe80::0280:c8ff:fef8:4a51/64 scope link
       Not valid: no accessible.

You can also use curl and the ipinfo.io API: not valid to accesss

where 192.168.1.11 s your global IPv4 address. If you are behind a NAT:et router, this isn't the same as your machines private IPv4 address in your LAN.

Finding your global IP address

To find your global IP which is what the outside world sees, you may use a website such as INet Clue or IP Finding or IP Chicken.

In Firefox

Simply download the extension "Live IP Address" to keep track of your current IP address. Useful if you are used to using automatic proxies.

In any browser on any operating system

Many websites can give you your IP address. These include, but are nowhere near limited to: