Our IP address tool directly detects and show your public IP address.
This can be useful for example for file sharing, screencasting, the security sections of cloud services (for example allowing your IP for a database), …
What is an IP address?
The IP address is an identification number given permanently or temporally to any device connected to a computer network using the Internet Protocol. Indeed, IP means Internet Protocol. The IP address is the base of the routing of packages of data on the internet.
There are currently two versions of the IP address. The version 4 (IPv4) based on 32 bits and the version 6 (IPv6) based on 128 bits. The IPv4 is currently the most used. The emergence of the IPv6 is due to the success of the internet and the exhaustion of IPv4 addresses.
IPv4 address
The 32 bits IPv4 addresses are composed of a series of 4 numbers from 0 to 255 and separated by points. For example: 180.175.82.26
Each number (0 to 255) represents an octet, which is equal to 8 bits. And so the total is indeed 32 bits or 4 octets.
IPv6 address
The IPv6 is composed of 128 bits (or 16 octets). The hexadecimal notation is used for this type of IP address. The IP is composed of 8 groups of 2 octets (16 bits), corresponding to 4 hexadecimal numbers, separated by 2 points.
An example of IPv6 is 2004:0af8:0000:12f2:0000:2345:fdc2:0000
A group of four 0 can be also simplified as: 2004:0af8:0:12f2:0:2345:fdc2:0 or even 2004:0af8::12f2::2345:fdc2:
IP address and domain name
The DNS (domain name system) uses the concept of IP address. Indeed, to avoid internet users from giving the IP address of a website, the DNS allows to write the name of the website instead of the IP. So, the DNS link the domain name to the IP of the website.