Command for determining my public IP?

Question

If I check with google, I can see my public IP. Is there something on the Ubuntu command-line which will yield me the same answer?

score 1193 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 06 '18 at 14:58

If you are not behind a router, you can find it out using ifconfig.

If you are behind a router, then your computer will not know about the public IP address as the router does a network address translation. You could ask some website what your public IP address is using curl or wget and extract the information you need from it:

curl -s https://checkip.dyndns.org | sed -e 's/.*Current IP Address: //' -e 's/<.*$//'

or shorter

curl https://ipinfo.io/ip

score 430 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 06 '18 at 13:45

For finding the external ip, you can either use external web-based services, or use system based methods. The easier one is to use the external service, also the ifconfig based solutions will work in your system only if you're not behind a NAT. the two methods has been discussed below in detail.

Finding external IP using external services

The easiest way is to use an external service via a commandline browser or download tool. Since wget is available by default in Ubuntu, we can use that.
To find your ip, use-

$ wget -qO- https://ipecho.net/plain ; echo

Courtesy:

You could also use lynx(browser) or curl in place of wget with minor variations to the above command, to find your external ip.

Using curl to find the ip:

$ curl https://ipecho.net/plain

For a better formatted output use:

$ curl https://ipecho.net/plain ; echo

A faster (arguably the fastest) method using `dig` with `OpenDNS` as resolver:

The other answers here all go over HTTP to a remote server. Some of them require parsing of the output, or rely on the User-Agent header to make the server respond in plain text. They also change quite frequently (go down, change their name, put up ads, might change output format etc.).

The DNS response protocol is standardised (the format will stay compatible).

Historically DNS services (OpenDNS, Google Public DNS, ..) tend to survive much longer and are more stable, scalable and generally looked after than whatever new hip whatismyip.com HTTP service is hot today.

(for those geeks that care about micro-optimisation), this method should be inherently faster (be it only by a few micro seconds).

Using dig with OpenDNS as resolver:

$ dig +short myip.opendns.com @resolver1.opendns.com

111.222.333.444

Copied from: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/81699/14497

Finding external IP without relying on external services

If you know your network interface name

Type the following in your terminal:

$ LANG=c ifconfig <interface_name> | grep "inet addr" | awk -F: '{print $2}' | awk '{print $1}'

In the above, replace <interface_name> with the name of your actual interface, e.g: eth0, eth1, pp0, etc...

Example Usage:

$ LANG=c ifconfig ppp0 | grep "inet addr" | awk -F: '{print $2}' | awk '{print $1}'
111.222.333.444

If you don't know your network interface name

Type the following in your terminal (this gets the name and ip address of every network interface in your system):

$ LANG=c ifconfig | grep -B1 "inet addr" |awk '{ if ( $1 == "inet" ) { print $2 } else if ( $2 == "Link" ) { printf "%s:" ,$1 } }' |awk -F: '{ print $1 ": " $3 }'

Example Usage:

$ LANG=c ifconfig | grep -B1 "inet addr" |awk '{ if ( $1 == "inet" ) { print $2 } else if ( $2 == "Link" ) { printf "%s:" ,$1 } }' |awk -F: '{ print $1 ": " $3 }'
lo: 127.0.0.1
ppp0: 111.222.333.444

N.B: Outputs are indicative and not real.

Courtesy: https://www.if-not-true-then-false.com/2010/linux-get-ip-address/

UPDATE

LANG=c has been added to ifconfig based usages, so that it always gives the english output, irrespective of locale setting.

score 160 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 29 '25 at 20:25

160

My favorite has always been :

curl ifconfig.me

simple, easy to type.

The command above might output IPv6, if you want just IPv4:

curl -4 ifconfig.me

You will have to install curl first ;)

If ifconfig.me is down try icanhazip.com and or ipecho.net

curl icanhazip.com

or

curl ipecho.net

edited Mar 29 '25 at 20:25

Tombart

999

answered Jun 01 '12 at 12:41

Panther

104,528

yprez · Answer 4 · 2016-01-18T16:40:55.197

76

icanhazip.com is my favorite.

curl icanhazip.com

You can request IPv4 explicitly:

curl ipv4.icanhazip.com

If you don't have curl you can use wget instead:

wget -qO- icanhazip.com

edited Jan 18 '16 at 16:40

answered Jun 01 '12 at 17:23

yprez

943

Pierre Carrier · Answer 5 · 2022-02-26T00:49:48.850

59

Running my own service, designed to be simple and stupid, ident.me.

Its API and implementation are documented at https://api.ident.me/

Examples from the terminal (add https:// for security at the expense of speed):

curl ident.me
curl v4.ident.me
curl v6.ident.me

edited Feb 26 '22 at 00:49

answered Jan 03 '13 at 15:49

Pierre Carrier

1,215
10
11

score 54 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 27 '14 at 15:07

54

You could use a DNS request instead of HTTP request to find out your public IP:

$ dig +short myip.opendns.com @resolver1.opendns.com

It uses resolver1.opendns.com dns server to resolve the magical myip.opendns.com hostname to your ip address.

answered Feb 27 '14 at 15:07

jfs

4,078

Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com · Answer 7 · 2020-12-16T17:30:52.673

40

Amazon AWS

curl https://checkip.amazonaws.com

Sample output:

123.123.123.123

Also works on browser: http://checkip.amazonaws.com

I like it because:

it returns just the plaintext IP in the reply body, nothing else
it is from a well known provider which is unlikely to go offline anytime soon

edited Dec 16 '20 at 17:30

answered Dec 21 '15 at 22:06

Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com

31,312

score 19 · Answer 8 · answered Jan 16 '12 at 14:20

19

The one i'm using is :

wget -O - -q icanhazip.com

Yes, you can have ip :-)

answered Jan 16 '12 at 14:20

jflaflamme

610

score 15 · Answer 9 · edited Oct 07 '21 at 07:34

For this, STUN was invented. As a client you can send a request to a publicly available STUN server and have it give back the IP address it sees. Sort of the low level whatismyip.com as it uses no HTTP and no smartly crafted DNS servers but the blazingly fast STUN protocol.

Using `stunclient`

If you have stunclient installed (apt-get install stuntman-client on debian/ubuntu) you can simply do:

$stunclient stun.services.mozilla.com
Binding test: success
Local address: A.B.C.D:42541
Mapped address: W.X.Y.Z:42541

where A.B.C.D is the IP address of your machine on the local net and W.X.Y.Z is the IP address servers like websites see from the outside (and the one you are looking for). Using sed you can reduce the output above to only an IP address:

stunclient stun.services.mozilla.com |
    sed -n -e "s/^Mapped address: \(.*\):.*$/\1/p"

However, your question was how to find it using the command line, which might exclude using a STUN client. So I wonder...

Using `bash`

A STUN request can be handcrafted, sent to an external STUN server using netcat and be post-processed using dd, hexdump and sed like so:

$echo -en '\x00\x01\x00\x08\xc0\x0c\xee\x42\x7c\x20\x25\xa3\x3f\x0f\xa1\x7f\xfd\x7f\x00\x00\x00\x03\x00\x04\x00\x00\x00\x00' |
    nc -u -w 2 stun.services.mozilla.com 3478 |
    dd bs=1 count=4 skip=28 2>/dev/null |
    hexdump -e '1/1 "%u."' |
    sed 's/\.$/\n/'

The echo defines a binary STUN request (0x0001 indicates Binding Request) having length 8 (0x0008) with cookie 0xc00cee and some pasted stuff from wireshark. Only the four bytes representing the external IP are taken from the answer, cleaned and printed.

Working, but not recommended for production use :-)

P.S. Many STUN servers are available as it is a core technology for SIP and WebRTC. Using one from Mozilla should be safe privacy-wise but you could also use another: STUN server list

score 13 · Answer 10 · edited Jul 02 '13 at 07:14

Type in this exactly, press Enter where indicated:

telnet ipecho.net 80Enter
GET /plain HTTP/1.1Enter
HOST: ipecho.net Enter
BROWSER: web-kitEnter
Enter

This manually submits a HTTP request, which will return your IP at the bottom of a HTTP/1.1 200 OK reply

Example output:

$ telnet ipecho.net 80
Trying 146.255.36.1...
Connected to ipecho.net.
Escape character is '^]'.
GET /plain HTTP/1.1
HOST: ipecho.net
BROWSER: web-kit

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Tue, 02 Jul 2013 07:11:42 GMT
Server: Apache
Expires: Mon, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT
Cache-Control: no-cache
Pragma: no-cache
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: text/html

f
111.222.333.444
0

Mohnish · Answer 11 · 2014-01-10T04:19:07.747

11

Another fast one (might well be the fastest, relatively)

curl ipecho.net/plain

edited Jan 10 '14 at 04:19

answered Dec 31 '13 at 20:49

Mohnish

263

jfs · Answer 12 · 2014-10-14T19:52:06.073

10

You can read a web page using only bash, without curl, wget:

$ exec 3<> /dev/tcp/icanhazip.com/80 && # open connection
  echo 'GET /' >&3 &&                   # send http 0.9 request
  read -u 3 && echo $REPLY &&           # read response
  exec 3>&-                             # close fd

edited Oct 14 '14 at 19:52

answered Sep 18 '14 at 10:47

jfs

4,078

score 7 · Answer 13 · edited Mar 13 '14 at 12:52

7

I have a stupid service for this by telnet. Something like this:

telnet myip.gelma.net

Your IPv4: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
Your IPv6: ::ffff:xxxx:xxxx

Feel free to use it.

edited Mar 13 '14 at 12:52

Dan

14,180

answered Mar 13 '14 at 12:37

Gelma

115

Wilf · Answer 14 · 2014-12-05T21:07:55.010

4

These will get the local IPs:

ifconfig

or for shorter output:

ifconfig | grep inet

also

ip addr show

and probably:

hostname -I

This should get the external IP

wget http://smart-ip.net/myip -O - -q ; echo

N.B. If you don't mind to installing curl, this as well:

curl http://smart-ip.net/myip

edited Dec 05 '14 at 21:07

answered Jun 27 '14 at 16:08

Wilf

30,732

cronburg · Answer 15 · 2014-06-03T03:01:34.123

For those of us with login access to our routers, using a script to ask the router what its' WAN IP address is is the most efficient way to determine the external IP address. For instance the following python script prints out the external IP for my Medialink MWN-WAPR300N router:

import urllib, urllib2, cookielib
import re
from subprocess import check_output as co

cookie_jar = cookielib.CookieJar()
opener = urllib2.build_opener(urllib2.HTTPCookieProcessor(cookie_jar))
urllib2.install_opener(opener)

def get(url, values=None):
  data = None
  if values: data = urllib.urlencode(values)
  req = urllib2.Request(url, data)
  rsp = urllib2.urlopen(req)
  return rsp.read()

router = co(['ip', '-o', 'ro', 'list', '0.0.0.0/0']).split()[2]
url = "http://" + router

get(url+"/index.asp")
get(url+"/LoginCheck", dict(checkEn='0', Username='admin', Password='admin'))
page = get(url+"/system_status.asp")

for line in page.split("\n"):
  if line.startswith("wanIP = "):
    print line.split('"')[1]
    exit(1)

Note that this is not very secure (as is the case with plaintext credentials & logging in to most routers), and is certainly not portable (needs to be changed for each router). It is however very fast and a perfectly reasonable solution on a physically secure home network.

To customize the script for another router, I recommend using the tamperdata addon in firefox to determine what HTTP requests to make.

score 3 · Answer 16 · answered Sep 18 '16 at 20:45

Many home routers can be queried by UPnP:

curl "http://fritz.box:49000/igdupnp/control/WANIPConn1" -H "Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"" -H "SoapAction:urn:schemas-upnp-org:service:WANIPConnection:1#GetExternalIPAddress" -d "<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?> <s:Envelope s:encodingStyle='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/' xmlns:s='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/'> <s:Body> <u:GetExternalIPAddress xmlns:u='urn:schemas-upnp-org:service:WANIPConnection:1' /> </s:Body> </s:Envelope>" -s

Then, grep the ip address from the answer.

grep -Eo '\<[[:digit:]]{1,3}(\.[[:digit:]]{1,3}){3}\>'

CMP · Answer 17 · 2017-04-14T16:27:39.323

If you are using DD-WRT then this works for me:

curl -s 192.168.1.1 | grep "ipinfo" | awk -v FS="(IP: |</span)" '{print $2}'

or

curl -s -u your_ddwrt_username:your_ddwrt_password http://192.168.1.1 | grep "ipinfo" | awk -v FS="(IP: |</span)" '{print $2}'

Where 192.168.1.1 is the Gateway/Router LAN IP Address of the DD-WRT router.
The -s component means silent (i.e. don't show the curl progress information).
Oh, I should mention that I use the above with "DD-WRT v24-sp2 (01/04/15) std".

score 2 · Answer 18 · answered Jan 09 '13 at 12:35

2

If you have installed lynx in Ubuntu type

lynx bot.whatismyipaddress.com

answered Jan 09 '13 at 12:35

Binny

121

score 1 · Answer 19 · answered Oct 21 '18 at 04:23

Maybe I am a little late, but inxi can do it fairly easy.

Install inxi

sudo apt install inxi

Then run the following command

inxi -i

Example with my information blocked out using the z option for copy and paste to sites like this:

~$ inxi -iz
Network:   Card: NVIDIA MCP77 Ethernet driver: forcedeth
           IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
           WAN IP: <filter>
           IF: eth0 ip-v4: <filter> ip-v6-link: N/A

Where it says <filter> is where your WAN IP, IPv4, MAC address etc will appear

score 1 · Answer 20 · answered Aug 15 '16 at 23:06

1

use ip!

ip addr show

then look for the relevant adapter (not lo, and usually eth0), and locate the ip address near inet.

answered Aug 15 '16 at 23:06

Eliran Malka

1,245
18
36

milahu · Answer 21 · 2024-10-06T11:56:49.193

to make this fast, use stunclient with a timeout

"fast" means about 2 times faster than a http request

based on the answer by Victor Klos

#!/bin/sh
whatismyip.sh
get my public IP address from a STUN server
check dependencies
for cmd in timeout stunclient; do
  if command -v $cmd &>/dev/null; then continue; fi
  echo "error: missing command: $cmd" >&2
  exit 1
done
if false; then
find nearby STUN servers
serverlist_url=https://github.com/pradt2/always-online-stun/raw/master/valid_ipv4s.txt
  sudo netselect -s 50 -t 10 $(curl -s -L $serverlist_url) |
  awk '{ print $2 }' |
  xargs sudo netselect -s 10 -t 100 |
  awk '{ print $2 }'
fi
function get_public_ipaddr() {
get my public IP address from a STUN server
based on https://askubuntu.com/a/683488/877276
TODO update the server list for your location
local stun_server_list="5.9.87.18:3478 74.125.250.129:19302 212.18.0.14:3478 109.68.96.189:3478"
  local stun_server=
  local host=
  local port=
  local res=
  local addr=
  for stun_server in $stun_server_list; do
    IFS=: read host port <<<"$stun_server"
    res="$(
      # fast response: 0.05 seconds
      # slow response: 5 seconds
      #time 

      timeout 0.2 

      stunclient $host $port
    )"
    if [ $? = 0 ]; then
      # get the "Mapped address"
      addr=$(echo "$res" | tail -n1)
      addr=${addr:16}
      addr=${addr%:*}
      echo $addr
      return
    #else echo "server failed: $stun_server" >&2 # debug
    fi
  done
  return 1 # all servers failed
}
set -e
get_public_ipaddr

score -2 · Answer 22 · answered Jul 24 '15 at 16:34

Simply issue a traceroute for any website or service..

sudo traceroute -I google.com

Line 2 always seems to be my public IP address after it gets past my router gateway.

user@user-PC ~ $ sudo traceroute -I google.com
traceroute to google.com (173.194.46.104), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
 1  25.0.8.1 (25.0.8.1)  230.739 ms  231.416 ms  237.819 ms
 2  199.21.149.1 (199.21.149.1)  249.136 ms  250.754 ms  253.994 ms**

So, make a bash command.

sudo traceroute -I google.com | awk -F '[ ]' '{ if ( $2 ="2" ) { print $5 } }'

And the output...

(199.21.149.1)

I don't think relying on PHP scripts and the sort is good practice.

score -2 · Answer 23 · answered Aug 19 '15 at 07:57

-2

A command with no dependencies except 8.8.8.8 being a GOogle DNS:

echo $(ip route get 8.8.8.8 | awk '{print $NF; exit}')

answered Aug 19 '15 at 07:57

Rolf

625

Command for determining my public IP?

23 Answers23

Finding external IP using external services

A faster (arguably the fastest) method using `dig` with `OpenDNS` as resolver:

Finding external IP without relying on external services

Using `stunclient`

Using `bash`

These will get the local IPs:

This should get the external IP

whatismyip.sh

get my public IP address from a STUN server

check dependencies

find nearby STUN servers

get my public IP address from a STUN server

based on https://askubuntu.com/a/683488/877276

TODO update the server list for your location

Linked

Related

Command for determining my public IP?

23 Answers23

Finding external IP using external services

A faster (arguably the fastest) method using dig with OpenDNS as resolver:

Finding external IP without relying on external services

Using stunclient

Using bash

These will get the local IPs:

This should get the external IP

whatismyip.sh

get my public IP address from a STUN server

check dependencies

find nearby STUN servers

get my public IP address from a STUN server

based on https://askubuntu.com/a/683488/877276

TODO update the server list for your location

Linked

Related

A faster (arguably the fastest) method using `dig` with `OpenDNS` as resolver:

Using `stunclient`

Using `bash`