Find the public IP address from the terminal

It is important to be able to find out your server's public IP address right from the terminal while working on remote server. Check the article below, to learn how to discover your system or Server's Public IP address from the Terminal on Linux.

1. Using host Command

Нou can find your server's public IP address y using the host command:

host myip.opendns.com resolver1.opendns.com

bash

Output:

Using domain server:
Name: resolver1.opendns.com
Address: 2620:119:35::35#53
Aliases:

myip.opendns.com has IPv6 address 2400:6180:100:d0::8e9:c001

If you want to get an IPv4 address using the host command, you can add the “-4” option to it.

host -4 myip.opendns.com resolver1.opendns.com

bash

Output:

Using domain server:
Name: resolver1.opendns.com
Address: 208.67.222.222#53
Aliases:

myip.opendns.com has address 143.110.250.111

You can use the grep command to filter only IPv6/IPv4 by running the following command:

For IPv4

host -4 myip.opendns.com resolver1.opendns.com | grep "address" | awk 'NF>1{print $NF}'

bash

Output:

143.110.250.111

For IPv6

host -6 myip.opendns.com resolver1.opendns.com | grep "address" | awk 'NF>1{print $NF}'

bash

Output:

2400:6180:100:d0::8e9:c001

2. Using Dig Command

The dig command is one of the easiest methods to find the public IP address of your server.

You can execute any of the commands below to find your system IP address.

dig ANY +short myip.opendns.com @resolver1.opendns.com

bash

dig ANY +short @resolver2.opendns.com myip.opendns.com

bash

dig +short ANY whoami.akamai.net @ns1-1.akamaitech.net

bash

dig +short @ns1-1.akamaitech.net ANY whoami.akamai.net

bash

dig +short ANY o-o.myaddr.l.google.com @ns1.google.com

bash

You can specify the IP version as shown in the below example:

dig +short ANY o-o.myaddr.l.google.com @ns1.google.com -4

bash

Kindly note that you can use the "-4" option with dig for IPv4 and the "-6" option for IPv6 in case you want to get a specific IP version.

3. Using the wget command

Wget is a powerful command-line downloader available on most Linux distributions. The wget command allows you to find the public IP address of your system by using it with third-party websites, as shown below:

wget -qO- checkip.amazonaws.com

bash

wget -qO- whatismyip.akamai.com

bash

wget -qO- http://ipecho.net/plain | xargs echo

bash

wget -qO- ifconfig.co -4

bash

wget -qO- ifconfig.co

bash

wget -qO- https://ifconfig.me | xargs echo

bash

wget -qO- icanhazip.com -4

bash

4. Using the curl command

Just like the wget commands, you can use the curl command with a third-party service to find the public IP address of your system.

Below are some third-party services you can use with the curl command:

curl ip.me

bash

curl -4 icanhazip.com

bash

curl ifconfig.me

bash

curl ipecho.net/plain

bash

curl ifconfig.co

bash

curl checkip.amazonaws.com

bash

curl whatismyip.akamai.com

bash

curl ident.me

bash

Now you can easily discover your system's public IP address using Terminal on Linux.

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