2

I've seen this question, but it doesn't address my current issue (it's about getting the external IP address of the current machine):
Windows command that returns external IP

I'm on a network that has a number of external IP addresses. I need to determine the external address of an internal machine that may use a different external address. Obviously, I could go to a machine outside the network and ping it from there, but how do I do this from inside the network?

I would like this to be incorporated into an automated process, so a DOS command or PowerShell script would be preferred.

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  • 1
    Isn't it set using NAT on your router? The machine isn't aware of any external address. Only router is
    – Ashtray
    Sep 13, 2013 at 15:24
  • @Ashtray Is it possible to do something like ping the server via another external server / service?
    – p.s.w.g
    Sep 13, 2013 at 15:35
  • 1
    It would be easier to answer if we'd know what are you trying to achieve/test/whatever :)
    – Ashtray
    Sep 13, 2013 at 15:37
  • @Ashtray I want to automatically build a list of IP address(es) that a customer will need to access when we install a particular product on their machine. Some customers are behind a firewall, so we can't determine it from the machine we're installing on (we would already need to know which IP's need to be unblocked). Rather, I'd like our build server to generate the list dynamically by resolving the server names to external IP addresses.
    – p.s.w.g
    Sep 13, 2013 at 16:13

5 Answers 5

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I think the only way you're gonna do this is with external services. You can use the system.Net.WebClient Powershell library along with the website http://icanhazip.com, which returns nothing but your external IP address.

$obj = New-Object system.Net.WebClient;
$ip = $obj.downloadString("http://icanhazip.com")
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  • How can I get this to return the IP address of another machine?
    – p.s.w.g
    Sep 13, 2013 at 15:52
  • 1
    You'd have to execute it from THAT machine. Or, you could run Powershell on that machine remotely by using PsExec. technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897553.aspx
    – trpt4him
    Sep 13, 2013 at 15:54
  • I agree: you would need to be on the other machine in order to discover its external IP address, so the other question that you cited is relevant. Sep 13, 2013 at 16:27
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    @barlop, the OP said there are multiple external IPs. Presumably different machines could have different external IPs.
    – trpt4him
    Sep 13, 2013 at 20:30
  • 2
    Well, if you have a hostname that reliably points to that IP, then you can just use nslookup to get the IP.
    – trpt4him
    Sep 13, 2013 at 23:46
2

ifconfig.me is a bit slow for me at the moment, but this works.

From commandlinefu

curl ifconfig.me

curl ifconfig.me/ip -> IP Adress
curl ifconfig.me/host -> Remote Host
curl ifconfig.me/ua ->User Agent
curl ifconfig.me/port -> Port

Another is

C:\>wget -O abc.a ifconfig.me/ip 2>nul & type abc.a

(obviously you can put that wget line in a bat file so effectively make a shortcut for it)

you have to download wget(a recent one is in/bundled with cygwin) or use curl http://curl.haxx.se/download.html

I'd add, that technically what you are finding is the IP of the external interface of your router / home router / NAT device. So the side of that device opposite to where your computer's plug into it. The side of that device that is facing the wall and connecting to your ISP through the wall. The IP of the network interface that is there.

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  • as an alternative: ifcfg.me
    – Eun
    Nov 28, 2014 at 11:37
  • @Eun the good thing with ifconfig.me/ip was it gave just the IP address no other data to grep.
    – barlop
    Nov 28, 2014 at 11:48
  • Should work with ifcfg.me too, just do curl ifcfg.me, btw it also supports ftp, nslookup etc.
    – Eun
    Nov 28, 2014 at 11:53
  • @Eun oh I see, it detects user agent so chrome returns an html page and curl - an ip. good find
    – barlop
    Nov 28, 2014 at 12:52
0

Edit: Scratch that, I got the gateway mixed up with the external IP. I was able to find this one though that has a bunch of good information in it.

I'm sure there has to be an easy way to do it locally but there are just too many variables.

How to get my external ip address over nat from the windows command line

0

If you can install programs on the other machine, an easy way would be to configure this machine to publish its IP address as a dns entry.

For example http://dyn.com/dns/ (not free) and http://www.noip.com/free/ appear to be two programs that provide this service.

For example, with dyn.com you can install a program which runs as a service on the other machine that will keep updating the dns entry for, as an example, yourname.dyndns.org.

If you want to know the current ip address, then you can just ping yourname.dyndns.org.

In some cases (eg accessing an webserver), you could use the name directly and never need to know the ip address.

-1

I had similar problem so I wrote simple command line tool, you can download OuterIP from sourceforge.

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    If you read the comments to the accepted answer you'll notice that the this is not the answer the OP was looking for. Jan 4, 2014 at 9:59
  • Just a download link is not an answer even if it is useful in solving the question. It's likely to attract downvotes.
    – fixer1234
    Sep 20, 2015 at 1:34

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