What the address tells you
The address above is your public IP: the one websites, game servers and mail servers see when you connect. It is usually not the address your computer has on its own network card — at home that is a private address such as 192.168.1.23, and the router translates it to the public one (NAT).
- Every device at home shows the same public address. They share the router’s.
- On mobile data or with some fibre providers, the public address is shared with other customers through carrier-grade NAT. If your router’s WAN address starts with
100.64to100.127, that is the case, and ports cannot be forwarded to you from outside. - Through a VPN or a proxy, the address is the VPN’s exit, not your own line’s.
- Reverse DNS is set by whoever holds the address. A provider-made name such as
p5b0c1d2e.dip0.example-isp.netis normal for home lines; a server’s is whatever its owner set.
Your IPv6 address
This page talks to our test server by its IPv4 address, so it only ever sees your IPv4 side — a dual-stack connection has both, and which one a website sees depends on the website. IPv6 rarely needs a lookup like this: a home router hands out real public IPv6 addresses instead of translating them, so the global address on your own device is the one the internet sees.
ip -6 addr show scope global # Linux
ifconfig | grep inet6 | grep -v fe80 # macOSGet-NetIPAddress -AddressFamily IPv6 -PrefixOrigin RouterAdvertisementLook for an address that starts with 2 or 3. One marked temporary is a privacy address your system changes every day or so and uses for outgoing connections; addresses starting with fe80 or fd only work inside your own network. On an IPv6-only mobile network the IPv4 address at the top of this page belongs to your carrier’s NAT64 gateway, which translates for you.
Your public IP from a terminal
Both commands ask a DNS server to report the address the question came from, which works on any machine with dig — including a server without a browser. Add -6 and an IPv6 resolver to see the IPv6 side:
dig +short myip.opendns.com @resolver1.opendns.com
dig +short TXT CH whoami.cloudflare @1.1.1.1
dig -6 +short TXT CH whoami.cloudflare @2606:4700:4700::1111The addresses on the machine’s own interfaces are a different list: ip -br addr on Linux, ipconfig on Windows.
Where you need it
The most common use on a server is an allow-list: letting only your own address reach SSH or an admin panel. With UFW that is sudo ufw allow from 203.0.113.7 to any port 22 — check first that your address is fixed, or you lock yourself out the day it changes. The rest of the hardening is in securing SSH access.
Frequently asked
What is my public IP address?
The address your connection reaches the internet from, as shown at the top of this page. Behind a home router it is the router's address, shared by every device in the household; on a mobile network it often belongs to the carrier's NAT and is shared with other customers; through a VPN or a proxy it is the VPN's or the proxy's address.
Why does this page not show my IPv6 address?
The page reaches our test server by its IPv4 address, so the server only ever sees your IPv4 side. Your IPv6 address is usually the global one your device shows itself — the section “Your IPv6 address” above shows where to find it.
What is the reverse DNS of my IP address?
The host name that whoever holds the address block has set for it in a PTR record. For a home or mobile connection it is usually a name your provider generated; for a server it is whatever its owner set in the hosting panel. Many addresses have none.
Does this page show my location?
No. It shows the address and its reverse DNS and nothing else. Location services guess a place from databases they compile themselves, and those guesses differ from one provider to the next, so this page does not add one.
Is my IP address stored?
Not in full. Our test server logs each request with the address cut down to its network (the first three parts of an IPv4 address), and holds the full address only in memory, as a rate-limit counter, for at most a day after your last request.
Related guides
How to secure SSH access on a public server
Port 22 gets brute-forced within minutes. Key-only auth plus fail2ban and a firewall removes almost all the risk. The practical, in-order setup.
UFW firewall setup: deny by default, open what you serve
Configure UFW the safe way: allow SSH first, open only the ports you serve, restrict sensitive ports by source, and rate-limit the noise.
Anonymous VPS hosting: what is actually possible, and what is not
What a host can and cannot know about you, what your own setup leaks, and how to run a VPS that is not trivially tied to your identity — honestly.