In computer networking, an IP (Internet Protocol) address is a numerical identifier assigned permanently or temporarily to every device connected to a network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. Its two major functions are to identify a network or host on a network and also serve for location addressing.
There are currently two versions of IP addresses: IPv4 and IPv6, which can either be private (viewable within an internal network) or public (can be seen by other machines on the Internet).
Additionally, a host can be assigned a static or dynamic IP address depending on the network configurations. In this article, we will show you 4 ways to find your Linux machine or server public IP address from the terminal in Linux.
1. Using dig Utility
dig (domain information groper) is a simple command-line utility for probing DNS name servers. To find your public IP addresses, use the opendns.com resolver as in the command below:
$ dig +short myip.opendns.com @resolver1.opendns.com 78.45.145.41
2. Using host Utility
host command is an easy-to-use command-line utility for carrying out DNS lookups. The command below will help to display your systems public IP address.
$ host myip.opendns.com resolver1.opendns.com | grep "myip.opendns.com has" | awk '{print $4}'
78.45.145.41
Important: The next two methods employ third party websites to display your IP address on the command line as described below.
3. Using wget Command Line Downloader
wget is a powerful command-line downloader that supports various protocols like HTTP, HTTPS, FTP and many more. You can use it with third-party websites to view your public IP address as follows:
$ wget -qO- http://ipecho.net/plain | xargs echo $ wget -qO - icanhazip.com 78.45.145.41
4. Using cURL Command Line Downloader
curl is a popular command-line tool for uploading or downloading files from a server using any of the supported protocols (HTTP, HTTPS, FILE, FTP, FTPS and others). The following commands display your public IP address.
$ curl ifconfig.co $ curl ifconfig.me $ curl icanhazip.com 78.45.145.41
