Your modem or router has a public IP address and a private IP address. We all know that the public IP address is assigned by your ISP or your Internet Service Provider. You also have a private IP address which the modem or router assigns at the IP in the subnet. All of the devices that connect to the home network will be assigned with a unique IP address by the router or modem.
What Is An IP Address?
The Internet Protocol or the IP Address is a unique number sequence that is assigned to each device connected to a computer network that uses an Internet Protocol for communication. So when a computer or your phone are connected to the internet, it will connect to a site’s IP that will serve as its home site. For your devices to be able to communicate with each other within the local network, they each should have a unique IP address.
The Importance of Knowing Your Private IP Address
The IP address of your router is the address that has been assigned within the private network. This means that the devices connected with the network need to know that they need the private IP address in order to communicate with the network. This is commonly an automatic process handled by the router so you don’t have to do anything on your part. But you still need to know the address of your router in case you want to configure it from the web interface.
Simple Ways To Determine My Private IP Address
Many of us are not familiar of accessing are private IP address and would ask, “What is my private ip?” If you are running on Windows, you can determine your computer’s private IP address by following the instructions below:
- Click Start
- On the “Search Program and Files” box, type “cmd” and press Enter
- This will give you a command prompt. Type the command “ipconfig” then press Enter
- This will show you your private IP address
If in case you are running a Unix-based OS like the Mac OS X or a Linux follow the instructions below:
- Open a terminal
- Run the “ifconfig” command
- This will give you your private IP address
Private IP Address – Can I Change It?
The Private IP Address can be changed using the router’s configuration interface. You should be able to change the default IP address to any address that you want as long as you are within the IP address range. If you go beyond that range, you will have trouble connecting to your internet. As a guide here are the ranges that you should take note of:
- From 10.0.0.0 to 10.255.255.255
- From 172.16.0.0 to 172.31.255.255
- From 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255
Knowing your IP address and how to access it is not a requirement. Your regular network activities like browsing or streaming music will not need this information. But your knowledge about it will come in handy in case you want to make some changes in the future. Just follow the steps above for you to be able to have access to it.
