I have written various posts about connecting your computer to the Internet, including how to connect using two different routers (Linksys’s WRT54G Wireless-G router and D-Link’s DI-524 wireless router), as well as various configurations.
One topic I haven’t discussed is how to retrieve the IP address of your router. You may not know the IP address if, for instance, someone has configured your router and changed the default address. I will show you how to get it in this post.
IP Addresses
Before I explain how to get the IP address of your router, I will provide a quick overview of an IP address. An IP address is a series of four numbers separated by dots that is unique to every machine and device on a network. This allows you to connect to any device by simply specifying the IP address of that device.
Since each device has a unique IP address, your computer, and router each have their own IP address. The address of your router is assigned by your ISP, and the address of your computer is assigned by your router. Your router will also have an IP address assigned by itself so it can connect to your local area network (LAN) and the Internet.
Now that you have have an idea what an IP address is, let’s take a look at retrieving the IP address of your router.
Retrieving the Router’s IP Address
When your computer connects to your router, it must know the IP address of the router, or it can’t connect. Since it must know the IP address of the router, you can easily retrieve it using a simple DOS command called ipconfig.
To retrieve the IP address of your router, use the following steps:
- Click Start->Run to open a Run dialog box. Alternatively, you can press Windows Key+R.
- In the box beside Open type cmd. A DOS window will appear.
- At the prompt, type ipconfig. Some information about your current networks will be displayed on the screen.
- Look for the entry labelled Default Gateway. This is the IP address of your router. A gateway is a device that acts as an entrance to a network. In this case the router acts as an entrance into your local network from the Internet.
Now you can type that IP address into your browser to access the router’s administrative Web pages, or use it to setup your network manually.
Summary
There may be times when someone has setup a network and changed the default IP address of the router. You can easily retrieve the IP address of your router by simply running ipconfig from a DOS prompt. The IP address of your router will be listed beside Default Gateway in the response of ipconfig.