# How does one find their IP address?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-find-their-ip-address/307885
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [June 11, 2005, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-find-their-ip-address/307885 "2005-06-11T19:43:01Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@nicobie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nicobie)
#### Post date: [June 11, 2005, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-find-their-ip-address/307885/1 "2005-06-11T19:43:01Z")
Everyone else seems to know what mine is.
I figure there must be a way for me to find out. :smack:
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### Author:  [@habs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/habs)
#### Post date: [June 11, 2005, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-find-their-ip-address/307885/2 "2005-06-11T19:44:12Z")
[www.whatismyipaddress.com](http://www.whatismyipaddress.com) is probably the easiest method. 🙂
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### Author:  [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)
#### Post date: [June 11, 2005, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-find-their-ip-address/307885/3 "2005-06-11T19:45:29Z")
[Here ya go](http://www.whatismyip.com/). That’s your Internet IP address, of course. Your actual computer may have a different one if you’re on an internal private network.
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### Author:  [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)
#### Post date: [June 11, 2005, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-find-their-ip-address/307885/4 "2005-06-11T19:47:33Z")
In Windows, right-click the network icon on the taskbar, choose Status, then Details
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### Author:  [@citybadger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/citybadger)
#### Post date: [June 11, 2005, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-find-their-ip-address/307885/5 "2005-06-11T20:38:27Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#):
>
> In Windows, right-click the network icon on the taskbar, choose Status, then Details
Only works if you have a network conenction icon enabled. Another alternative: open a command prompt and type “ipconfig” (in Windows), “ifconfig” (in Linux and probably other \*nixes), or (and I’m sure you wanted to know this) “config” in NetWare.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [June 11, 2005, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-find-their-ip-address/307885/6 "2005-06-11T21:34:01Z")
The info you get from iconfig or the netowk connection properties page is only your NIC’s address. If you have a firewall or router, that address is the one your PC uses to talk to/from the router. this is known as your local, or pirivate IP address. It is not the address the router uses to talk to the world, which is your “public” IP address, which is also what most laymen mean by “my IP address.”
In addition to the public/private distinction, I’d also point out that even your public IP address is not necessarily constant. If you use a dial-up modem, or a PPOE software adapter with DSL without a router/firewall, then you get a new IP address every time you log on.
if you use a router/firewall with DSL, you get a new IP address every time the router logs on, which may be frequently if you power it off/on with the PC or your ISP has a short timeout and you don’t have connection keep-alives configured. Or it may be long if your router stays up & connected for weeks on end.
Cable “modems” tend to have pretty constant IP addresses, but even those, AFAIK, are subject to change when certain hardware is reset at the cable company’s facility.
Bottom line: Businesses, and consumers willing to pay for the privilege, have essentially permanent public IP addresses. Everybody else has a public IP address which changes every few weeks, days, or even hours.
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### Author:  [@nicobie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nicobie)
#### Post date: [June 11, 2005, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-find-their-ip-address/307885/7 "2005-06-11T23:16:29Z")
Thank you.