How do I figure out my IP address on a Mac?

Three other ways to get your IP Address on OS X:

1. Run the Network Utility (under Applications | Utilities ). Your IP address is in the Info tab, on the left, next to IP Address(es). You may need to change the "Network Interface"

2. Open up "Network Preferences" on the Location menu (under the Apple). Your IP Address will be in the List of different connections.

3. Use the "Net monitor" utility available from http://homepage.mac.com/rominar/net.html . It can be set to put a graph in your menu bar. Move your mouse over the graph and it will show a window with your IP Address.

Assuming you have a single ethernet interface and an airport interface. Using Terminal.app you can use ipconfig.

If you're connected via ethernet:
$ ipconfig getifaddr en0

If you're connect via airport:
$ ipconfig getifaddr en1

Or just use this supremely easy URL:
http://www.whatismyip.com/

i need internet on my psp! but it dnt work because the IP address is timed out how do i untime it out

dave, on my PSP my IP address times out.... so I type it in manually, but I dont know how to fine my Primary DNS and my Default router.

P.S.(I have a Mac OS X)

my aautomatic ip address,dns won't work how do i make it work.do i go to manual ip address and dns and make one? its for my psp...please help me!!!

I am getting emails from a cyberstalker.... I have a restraining order against him and he continues to violate the restraining order. How do I find the ip address of the location of where he is sending these emails from ? and how do I trace the email address that he is using back to his orginal email address which has his information all over it???

Thanks for the information about the ip address I know my own ip address from the site www.ip-details.com

Could you please just explain in two sentences or less what an IP address is? I am getting a notice everyday that I must upgrade my IP address

Sure, Willa. IP = Internet Protocol. It's the bottom part of "TCP/IP" (TCP = Transmission Control Protocol). As I understand it, IP relates to how information is sent point-to-point from one computer to another on the network, and TCP is how that information is "packaged up" for transmission and receipt. So IP is like a phone line, while a fax machine's message is like TCP.

Well Dave, I followed your directions in the Terminal and while the grep command is nifty, I not sure your instructions yield a user's actual IP address. In my case, I also got the 10.0.X.X result, and this is confirmed in the Network Utility application's Info tab. But my actual IP address apparently begins with 75. This is confirmed with the URLs provided by Erika and Madhu, and by simply editing in Wikipedia without logging in (they capture and display it). So, I'm confused now -- are there two IP addresses?

Hi Dave and Anonymuss,
I have the same problem than Anonymuss.
When i get my IP address with your command i get something like: 192.168.etc
And when I check with what www.whatismyip.com or www.ip-details.com gives, I get something like 79.85.etc.
Why is it different? Shouldn't I get the ame result?
Cheers

fif, most likely what's happening is that you have a router or gateway that's also acting as a NAT and DHCP server. That is, the box is protecting your individual machines from the Internet by mapping all of your internal addresses (for multiple machines, for example) into a single address. That's usually 192.* and it's all normal. Basically you can just use the router's address (what whatismyip.com reports) and you should be fine.

Ok, I don't know why you have to make it so hard for people new to IPs. For those asking about having two different IPs. Your address in 10.x.x.x or 192.x.x is your private address. It is what your home dsl box, router, or cable modem gives you. To go out on the internet you need a different kind of IP address, one that isn't private, but public.

Your public address is what whatismyip.com will show you, this is 99% of the time not the address of your computer, but the address your router/dsl/cable modem has.

Public addresses are unique, no two are the same at the same time. Private addresses can repeat (for example, your friend might have the exact same ip address on his PC, but never the same public address).

Anyways, cool article author!

Thanks, extremely useful!

Although John Bales' hint (2nd commentary) might beat yours out in simplicity...

Everything worked as described in this article except this part:

echo alias myip="ifconfig | grep 'inet ' | grep -v 127.0.0.1 |
cut -d\ -f2" >> ~/.bashrc

When I did this, typing myip returned:

-bash: myip: command not found

Is this related to the path to bash?

Darin, if you don't to create an alias for "myip" then you don't have to worry about it, otherwise you've got your quotes wrong OR you're typing this in on two lines. :-)

$ echo alias myip="ifconfig | grep 'inet ' | grep -v 127.0.0.1 |
cut -d\ -f2" >> ~/.bashrc

this command does not work

$ alias myip="ifconfig | grep 'inet ' | grep -v 127.0.0.1 |
cut -d\ -f2" >> ~/.bashrc

but this one does!

i dont know why he had echo? but remove it and type excactly this and it should work.

alias myip="ifconfig | grep 'inet ' | grep -v 127.0.0.1 |
cut -d\ -f2" >> ~/.bashrc

@dave taylor

he echo'ed the command so it will be appended (that's what >> is all about) to the .bashrc configuration file that the alias will load every time you use the command line. If you only type alias name="command -flag -flag | pipe | pipe" you will just set the alias for the current session.

I am even using a different approach (I have a fairly frequent use of aliases) in importing the aliases from another file so it won't clutter the .bashrc file. I called it .bash_aliases and import it with the following lines (I add to the .bashrc or .bash_profile):

if [ -f ~/.bash_aliases ]; then
. ~/.bash_aliases
fi

This will cause the file .bash_aliases being loaded (if it exists) every time .bashrc or .bash_profile is executed.

you can also add the alias to the .bashrc or .bash_profile with opening the desired file with nano, and editing it directly:

nano ~/.bashrc

Running OS10.6.8

shoeis-computer:~ shoei$ echo alias myip="ifconfig | grep 'inet ' | grep -v 127.0.0.1 | cut -d\ -f2" >> ~/.bashrc
shoeis-computer:~ shoei$ myip
-bash: myip: command not found
shoeis-computer:~ shoei$ cat .bashrc

alias myip=ifconfig | grep 'inet ' | grep -v 127.0.0.1 | cut -d\ -f2
shoeis-computer:~ shoei$ vi .bashrc
(I removed the blank first line)
shoeis-computer:~ shoei$ myip
-bash: myip: command not found
shoeis-computer:~ shoei$

That's all correct, Tom. Either log out and log in again to your Terminal window (xterm, etc) or you have to force the shell to interpret the new rc file *within its own process*. By just using something like "sh .bashrc" you spawn a subshell, that processes the new alias, then the subshell is killed because it's done with its work.

Instead, try this:

. .bashrc

or, if that complains it can't find the rc file:

. ~/.bashrc

Now type

aliases

and you should see "myip" show up.

Still no go...

shoeis-computer:~ shoei$ . ~/.bashrc
shoeis-computer:~ shoei$ aliases
-bash: aliases: command not found
shoeis-computer:~ shoei$ . .bashrc
shoeis-computer:~ shoei$ aliases
-bash: aliases: command not found
shoeis-computer:~ shoei$ alias
shoeis-computer:~ shoei$ ifconfig | grep 'inet ' | grep -v 127.0.0.1 | cut -d\ -f2
180.168.10.54
shoeis-computer:~ shoei$

Tom, what do you get when you do this:

tail -5 ~/.bashrc

and I admit, the command to see all the aliases is "alias", not "aliases" as I suggested earlier. If only I could edit these darn comments! :-)

$ tail -5 ~/.bashrc
alias myip=ifconfig | grep 'inet ' | grep -v 127.0.0.1 | cut -d\ -f2

Ah, I understand now, Tom. The problem is that what the shell's seeing is:

alias myip=ifconfig

then the rest of it is a command it actually executes, which is definitely wrong. Add double quotes, one before "ifconfig" and one after "-f2" -- in the .bashrc -- and see if that works better. :-)