How to find your Public IP address?

In the previous post ,we discussed about how to find my IP address (private),In this post we will look at methods on how to find your IP address which is visible on the internet.Simple way to find out is to use ip address lookup. This tool will show your IP addess as well geolocation information.You can find out the location of another IP address as long as it is a valid public IP address.For ex-if you type 192.168.1.1 it will show you nothing.Another way to find out is to do it manually.There are various options available to connect to the Internet like DSL modem which works with phone line,CableTV internet(CATV)and so on.With DSL or CATV as a connection ,you will have Router or modem installed by your Internet Service Provider(ISP)at your home which connects your private and public networks.This is what it looks like :

 In the above network topology, 192.168.1.2 is my computer's IP address,192.168.1.1 is my router's IP address and 1.1.1.1 is my router's WAN IP address.Thing is that router has two interface,one facing your home and another facing the Internet.Private ip address for home and Public IP address for Internet.

Find out your IP address :

To know your public IP address ,you have to access your router's webpage.Press Windows logo+r >type ncpa.cpl>enter>right click on the connection which is connected>Status>Details and find your default-gateway address.When you know your default-gateway address ,open up the browser and type that IP address in the address bar and press Enter.





It will ask for username and password which by default in most cases are admin and admin or admin and password ,you can check your router's default username and password on Google.

This will open up router's webpage,This is my Asus DSL- N10E router ,To see what my Public IP address is, I click on Router Status>WAN.Steps will be different for your router.All you have to do is to find your default-routers address and type that address in the browser,type username and password and your router's interface is in front of you.

This public IP address is not static meaning if you shutdown your router and restart it after 5-10 mins,its ip address will change.Because ISPs use DHCP server to lease IP address to the clients when requested.

Find your IP address

IP addresses are 32bit addresses which computers and devices used to communicate in computer network.These IP addresses are divided into classes which are A,B,and C and each class has range.For Ex-Class A ip address starts with 1 to 126 .For more info on IP address classes click here.
IP addresses are allocated by Internet Assigned Numbers Authority(IANA)which manages the allocation of these addresses globally. IANA has five regional authorities which allocates these IP address locally.For ex-American Registry for Internet numbers(ARIN)for United States,Canada...

What is my IP address?

To find out what your ip address is,Press windows logo+r>type ncpa.cpl>see which connection is connected,right click it >Status>Details.

 

To change the IP address,Click properties >Double click "Internet Protocol Version 4(TCP/IPv4)>click "use the following IP address>type any IP address you want under Private IP address range like 192.168.10.1.Another thing to understand is Subnet mask which is also prefixed for every class which we will talk about later but for now when you type ip address ,computer will fill the subnet mask field for you.Also don't forget to fill in the Default-gateway which is your router's Ip address.

In the above screenshot,you can see that my default'gateway is 192.168.1.1.You can see your default-gateway under "Details"

Private and Public IP address :

Private IP addresses are those which are not meant to be routed on the Internet.These addresses can be used inside your Local Area Network(LAN)(owned by you) for ex-in your home,office but they can't be routed on the internet.Interesting thing is that two neighboring homes can have the same private IP address but it doesn't affect the functioning of the network.You can change the private IP address whatever you like as long as they are valid addresses. Each class has its own private IP address range means you can configure any IP address from these range and your computer will not bite you.

Valid Private IP address range :

Class A :  10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255

Class B :  172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255

Class C :  192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255.

Public IP address are those addresses which are (not owned by you) routed on the Internet and are accessible from anywhere in the world.You can't have just any public IP address on your computer.These IP addresses are purchased.For ex-Google DNS server has IP address 4.4.4.4 which is a public ip address.Public IP address ranges are :

Valid Public IP address range :

Class A : 1.0.0.0 - 9.255.255.255

                11.0.0.0 - 126.255.255.255

Class B : 128.0.0.0 - 172.16.255.255

                172.32.0.0 - 191.255.255.255

Class C :  192.0.0.0 - 192.167.255.255

                 192.169.0.0 -223.255.255.255

What are IP addresses ?

All the network devices in the world weather its a PC,Laptop or Android device needs to recognize them selves as who they are.To able to send data to another computers they use these IP addresses which is a 32 bit long address.You can check your computer's or laptop IP address by pressing the Windows logo key+run,type ncpa.cpl,this will open Network connections,whichever connection is connected right now,right click on it,click status.In android devices,you could see your IP address by going into Settings>About Device>Status.

How do we write them ?

Computers don's understand 50 or 55,it understand 0's and 1's which is a binary language.
ip addresses are 32 bits long and divided into 4 octet.Each octet is 8 bits long.
So an IP address is  :
32bit address
4 octet or Byte.
For Ex- 1.1.1.1
Every period after 1 is known as "dot".

What is Bit or Byte actually ?

A single bit is 1 or 0 where 1 means "On" and 0 means "Off".
A byte is 8 bits.
An Octet or byte is the same thing and can contain values from 0 -255 but any number between this range will be written as 0 or 1 even if its 255.You can't write 00000255.
The above given address starts with :
00000000.00000000.00000000.00000001  and values can go up to
00000000.00000000.00000000.11111111  in the last octet.

What they are?

IP addresses are divided into classes-A,B and C.
Class A: 1-126
Class B: 128-191
Class C: 192-223

Class A has first octet as Network part and last 3 octet is for hosts.
Class B  has first two octet as Network part and last 2 octet is for hosts.
Class C  has first three octet as Network part and last octet is for hosts.

127 is reserved for loopback address which computer uses to test itself.When troubleshooting Network connection problem,you will need to use this loopback address to see if TCP/IP stack is installed on computer and working.There are other classes D and E as well buy they are for Multicast and research purpose and we don't use them.


And how we are going to understand what's written in the octet.This language is for computer, for us to understand we need to convert this binary to decimal.

How binary to decimal conversion works :

Have you remember learning powers of 2 ?
20 =1
21=2
22=4
23=8
24=16
25=32
26=64
27=128

This is exactly what we need to understand.
Every bit in an octet represents a decimal value and we need to take that value and add that up.
For ex- 00001111 in binary means 4 bits from right are on and 4 bits next to it are off.We will add decimal value of those "On"bits and the resulting value is our answer.15 will the decimal value for the above given binary representation.How?

Add the decimal values of on bits :
8+4+2+1 = 15

If it was 10101010 ,

128    64    32    16     8      4      2       1
1         0      1      0      1      0      1       0

128+32+8+2 =170

Here is an example with all four octets:
01110000.11010100.11111000.01100011
We will add on bits,

01110000 =
128  64  32  16  8  4  2  1
 0      1     1   1   0  0  0   0  = 64+32+16 =112

11010100
128  64  32  16  8  4  2  1
 1      1    0     1  0  1  0  0 =  128+64+16+4 =212

11111000
128  64  32  16  8  4  2  1
 1      1    1    1   1  0  0  0  = 128+64+32+16+8= 248

01100011
128  64  32  16  8  4  2  1
  0     1    1    0   0  0  1  1 =  64+32+2+1 = 99

01110000.11010100.11111000.01100011 will be
112.212.248.99