IP Address, How to Find an IP Address for Any Url, IP Registration, Who is IP

IP Address, How to Find an IP Address for Any URL

Click to read my article, where to register your domain name

There are lots of tools to enable you to find an IP address from any URL, the web is full of them. In this article we’ll cover several easy methods to find IP addresses, and discover the underlying information about the registrants of those domains.

Contents:

• What is an IP Address (Internet Protocol Address)
• What is a URL?
• IP Address for URL using Command Line PING
• What is My IP Address? Command Line IPCONFIG
• What is My IP Address? Google Search
• IP Registration, Who is IP
• IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority)
• The Downside to Who is IP Registration Lookup
• How to Find an IP Address for Any URL Conclusion

If you’re a Windows user, strangely enough, the simplest solution is right in front of you. Translating from a domain name to an IP address is something your computer does each time you access the internet. It will be no surprise to learn then that there are several Windows tool for the job. The easiest to use is PING.

But first lets quickly discus some basics:

What is an IP Address (Internet Protocol Address)

An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a numerical designation assigned to any device participating in a computer network which uses the Internet Protocol for communication between its nodes.

• In simple terms, the address of each server, computer, printer, web cam etc. connected to the Internet (network) and using the Internet Protocol for passing data. Just like a car license plate, an IP address is a special serial number used for identification.

What is a URL?

A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is a specific character string that constitutes a reference to an Internet resource. A URL is technically a type of uniform resource identifier (URI) but for general usage and discussions URL is often used as a synonym for URI. So we’ll stick with URL as well.

More simply, a URL is the full address specification to a web page and has three parts:

• The protocol specifier: http: (port 80), ftp (ports 20 & 21), SMTP (port 25). For those interested, you can find the Service Name and Transport Protocol Port Number Registry here.
• The domain name: kingsolutions.org.uk
• The page location: /wordpress/index.php

Remember: It’s only the domain name which has an IP address associated with it. So that’s what you will use for the lookup query.

IP Address for URL using Command Line PING

If you want to find the IP address for a URL then all you need to do is ping the URL. To accomplish this using Microsoft Windows you would do the following:

• Start Menu > All Programs > Accessories > Command prompt.
• Enter “ping” followed by the URL (e.g. ping www.google.com) > [Enter].
• Your computer will ping (i.e. send a request to the URL) and will retrieve the URL’s IP address.

The following is an example of pinging Google:
C:\ >ping www.google.com
This command returns the following information:

What is My IP Address? Command Line IPCONFIG

Windows users can view their IP address using the ipconfig (IPCONFIG) command line tool. Ipconfig displays all current TCP/IP network configuration values and refreshes Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) and Domain Name System (DNS) settings.

• Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt.Type ipconfig and hit enter.

What is My IP Address? Google Search

You can also use Google search to find your IP address. In the search box type the query:

• what is my IP address

Google will show the IP address of the computer from which the query was received as the top search result.

IP Registration, Who is IP

If you need the Who is IP registration information then simply go to the source, IANA or one of the local DNS root zone registrars. The who is information from these sources is where everyone else gleans there who is IP registration data.

• Services like PlotIP and others will return information about the web hosting provider or hosting company that owns the block that the IP is a part of. Typically that will include the name, address, phone number of the web hosting provider.

IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority)

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is responsible for the global coordination of the DNS Root, IP addressing, and other Internet protocol resources.

Domain Names: IANA manages the DNS Root Zone (assignments of ccTLDs and gTLDs), as well as the .int registry, and the .arpa zone.

Number Resources: IANA coordinates the global IP and AS number space, and allocates these to Regional Internet Registries.

Protocol Assignments: IANA is the central repository for protocol name and number registries, used in many Internet protocols.

The IANA Service is provided using the WHOIS protocol on port 43. This web gateway will query the server and return the results for the whois query. Accepted query arguments are domain names, IP addresses and AS numbers.

• If you need even more information, just look towards the bottom of the returned data at the ‘remarks’ line, the will give you the registrar information. Querying this address will give you even more information on the domain name in question.
• remarks: Registration information: http://www.pir.org

The registrar information show will be for the local DNS root zone. For example the UK local DNS root zone is managed by Nominet.

• Nominet manages .uk domains.
• InterNIC Whois, manages .com, .net, etc. domains.

The Downside to Who is IP Registration Lookup

There are a couple of catches when using Who is IP Registration Lookup:

• Not all registrars will show up easily.
• Some folks go to great lengths to hide their domain ownership. Either by registering with false information (not a good idea as it’s breaking the registration rules), or by using a privacy service.
• By having your email address made public in your domain registration, you leave yourself open to spammers.

How to Find an IP Address for Any URL Conclusion

As a final thought, if you’re using the Firefox browser you might consider one of the many add-ons for displaying IP information, i.e. ShowIP.

You can research your domain name choices at any of the registrars listed in my article, Where to Register Domain Names. Most of these registrars provide domain name registration, domain name hosting, free domain name search facilities and some even give you a FREE domain name.

Well, I hope you found something useful and enjoyed this article, How to Find an IP Address for Any URL. Don’t forget to let me have your thoughts in the comment box below. See you soon.