How to Find IP Address of Any Device On Your Network.
The first step to troubleshooting any network problem is to ping the IP address. To do this, you need to know the IP address of the device or, in some cases, the IP address of all devices on the network. There are several ways to do this, and it depends entirely on the type of OS you are using. So, here are the ways to find the IP addresses of other devices on your network, be it Windows, Android, iOS, Ubuntu, or macOS.
Find the IP address of other devices on your network
In this article, we will look at ways to determine the private IP addresses of devices. Because the public IP address of all devices on the same network remains the same, that is, the IP address of your router. In case you are surprised by the words public and private IP address, it is quite simple. We have a detailed article on the difference between public and private IP and how to find the IP address of your own device.
1. H How to find IP address in network cmd
The easiest way to do this on Windows is through the command line. To open a command prompt, enter “cmd” in the start menu. When you see the command prompt, right-click it and select “Run as administrator”.
If you are using Windows 10, you can directly run Command Prompt as administrator. Just right-click on the Start icon and select Command Prompt (Admin).
When you get a command prompt window, enter the following command. arp – a
This will display the entire list of ARP entries. If you’re interested, ARP is a network utility that keeps track of all of the private IP addresses on the network.
Find the IP address of all devices on the network with the Windows app
Finding IP addresses through the command line may be the easiest, but not the most intuitive, way. If you are not good at command line, you should download this Nirsoft utility called Wireless Network Watcher. The app has a portable version as well as an exe.
As soon as you open the app, it starts scanning your network. Wait a moment and it will list the active connections on your network. The application will display all computers, smartphones and smart home devices that are currently connected to the network. Along with the device name and IP address, it also presents other important information like MAC address, device information, etc., as well as its IP address.
Read: Useful NirSoft Utilities Every Windows User Should Try
2. Find the IP address on the network on Ubuntu
If you are working with Ubuntu or any Unix based OS, then the following methods. You can find out the IP address using the arp utility on the terminal. To open a terminal, right-click anywhere on the desktop and select Open Terminal.
Alternatively, you can also click the Actions button in the upper left corner. The search bar will appear. Enter Terminal on it and click the Terminal icon when it appears.
When a terminal window opens, enter the following command. arp -a
Another intuitive way to do this is through a graphical interface. You need to install a tool called Angry IP Scanner. To install Angry IP Scanner, you need to add an entry to the APT repository. APT (Advanced Packaging Tool) will then be able to get Angry IP Scanner from that specific location. To add an entry to the repository, enter the following command sudo add-apt-repository ppa: upubuntu-com / network
If you are having trouble installing IP Scan, make sure you disable gpg signature verification. You can do this with the following command. sudo apt-get –allow-unauthenticated upgrade
After successfully adding the entry, we need to update the apt-get repository. To do this, enter the following command sudo apt-get update
After successfully updating the apt repository, we can install the Angry IP Scanner app. Enter the following command to get and install sudo apt install ipscan app
Alternatively, if you have a browser, you can also choose to install directly from the Angry IP Scanner website. As soon as you launch the app, it will appear on the network you are connected to. Once it is complete, you will see active connections on your network.
It has advanced tools like open FTP, Telnet, SSH connections for any of the IP devices. One thing it lacks is the inability to display hostnames for devices. Most devices are identified with N / A in the hostname. However, you can find out using the host command, but this requires additional steps.
Read: How to Use Angry IP Scanner – A Beginner’s Guide
3. H How to find out who is on my WiFi on macOS
On macOS, the steps are very similar to those on Ubuntu. To find out the IP addresses of other devices on your network via the command line, we need to open a terminal first. To do this, press Cmd + Space to activate Spotlight search. Enter “Terminal” in the search bar. When the search results appear, click the terminal icon.
When a terminal window opens, enter the following command. arp -a
This will be a list of IP addresses on your local network with their MAC addresses. The IP addresses are listed in parentheses followed by the MAC address.
You cannot see the hostname (computer or smartphone name) on the command line. To do this, you will need to search for a host separately for each IP. For example, if I need to find the hostname 192.168.1.105, I have to run the following command
host 192.168.1.105
If the commands seem too complicated, you can download a free software from the Mac App Store called LAN scan. This app will list the IPs connected to the local network as well as other details like MAC addresses, vendor, etc. This app does not capture hostnames like Wireless Network Watcher. To get device hostnames, you need to get the premium option. It can be purchased for a one-time fee of $ 7.
Also Read: Find Out Who Is Connected To Your Wi-Fi
4. Android and iOS
On Android and iOS, there is no native way to check the IP addresses of all devices on the network. Hence, you will need to download a third party app for this. Fing is a powerful network utility available for both Android and iOS that allows you to scan your network. All you have to do is open the app and it will automatically start scanning all devices on your network. You will see all their IP addresses, their names.
Unlike all the other apps we tested for Windows and Mac, Fing was the only one who could identify the brands and models of your connected devices. It can even get a device icon – be it an iPhone, MacBook, router or printer, etc.
Check Fing (iOS, Android)
Apart from scanning IP addresses, you can also ping them or see open ports on a specific device.
5. The router
One of the most popular ways to check who is connected to your Wi-Fi network is to use your router’s web interface.
If you have access to the web interface of the router, you can simply log into the web portal and check. The web portal address, username and password are in most cases printed behind the router. If you don’t have physical access to your router, the web portal URL is basically the gateway address of your PC. To find this, open a command prompt and enter the following command. ipconfig | findstr “Default Gateway”
The default username and password depend on the router manufacturer. The most commonly used username and password are “admin”. If that doesn’t work, visit the manufacturer’s official website to get the default credentials.
Once you are logged in, take a look at the Wireless or DHCP option. We need to go to the list of DHCP clients. On this page, you can see the entire list of devices connected to the network with their client name and MAC address. You can also block specific devices from this interface. To learn more about this, check out our article on how to block someone on your network.
The advantage of this approach is that you don’t need to install any software because you can access the router from any device. However, the only drawback is that you need to know the router credentials. If you are in a production environment, you may not have access to this information to login to the router admin page. In this case, you will have to use the methods mentioned above.
The last words
Once you have found the IP addresses of the devices on your network. You can start to configure your network accordingly. You can start assigning static IP addresses to your device, setting up SSH, gaining remote access to your computer, and more.