THE EVERYDAY IP TOOLKIT
Your public IP, the records behind a name, and the numbers that shape a network.
The source address seen by this service. A router, VPN or proxy may sit between you and the internet.
A FEW GOOD TOOLS
Query public DNS records for a domain.
One resolver's answer, not a global propagation check. How to read DNS records ↗
Network, mask, broadcast and usable range. Calculated on your device. The starting /24 is illustrative, not your detected network; IPv6 connections use a documentation IPv4 example.
Supports /0 through /32, including point-to-point /31 networks.
Check IPv4 or IPv6 format, address scope and reverse DNS.
Address scope does not establish ownership or reachability. IPv4 vs IPv6 ↗
KNOW WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING AT
Public, not private. The IP above is the address this service sees—not necessarily the address assigned to your device.
One request, one path. A browser may use IPv6 while another connection uses IPv4. Neither result proves the other is unavailable.
DNS, with context. A record is not proof that a website is reachable. Check the response status and record type first.
Read the Field Guide →TERMINAL FRIENDLY
curl aboutip.info216.73.217.121A separate command may use a different route.Plain text by default for command-line clients. Use HTTPS for encryption, or JSON for a structured response.
Plain Text, JSON & PowerShell →LESS MYSTERY, MORE UNDERSTANDING
Understand the address inside your network and the address the internet sees.
4 min readTwo address formats, one internet. Learn what a single connection can tell you.
3 min readMake sense of record types, response status, caching and resolver context.
4 min readGOOD QUESTIONS
Your provider may assign addresses dynamically. Switching Wi-Fi, mobile networks, VPN endpoints or IP protocols can change the address a service sees.
Not precisely. IP location databases are approximate and can describe a provider’s network rather than your device. ABOUTIP does not request GPS location. The time zone above comes from your browser.
No. The starting prefix is an example, not a measured network mask. Enter the IPv4 address and prefix you actually want to calculate. The calculation runs locally in your browser.
Yes. Use the CLI / API guide. The overall allowance is 40 requests per source IP in a rolling 60 seconds. Pages and API requests share it; DNS and reverse DNS have an additional shared lookup budget.
FOR YOUR TERMINAL · 5 MIN READ
No banner, no markup, no extra fields. A command-line request to ABOUTIP returns the source IP seen by the service, followed by one newline.
Just the domain. No parameters needed.
curl aboutip.infoThat bare command uses HTTP. For an encrypted connection, use HTTPS:
curl -fsS https://aboutip.infoThe address belongs to this connection, not necessarily your device. A VPN, proxy, NAT gateway or different IP protocol can change what you see.
Write the plain IP response to your terminal.
wget -qO- https://aboutip.infoUse the dedicated plain-text endpoint so the result does not depend on the request’s user agent.
Invoke-RestMethod https://aboutip.info/ipIn Windows PowerShell, curl can be an alias. Use curl.exe if you specifically want the curl executable.
/ip returns the address and a newline regardless of your client. Ordinary browsers visiting the home page receive the toolkit.
curl -fsS https://aboutip.info/ip/api/ip keeps the same two fields: ip is the observed source address; version is 4 or 6.
curl -fsS https://aboutip.info/api/ip{"ip":"192.0.2.10","version":4}PowerShell converts the JSON to an object. Read just its IP field:
(Invoke-RestMethod https://aboutip.info/api/ip).ipThese flags select an IP family. Your network must support that family; a failed IPv6 connection does not mean the IP API is unavailable over IPv4.
curl -4 -fsS https://aboutip.infocurl -6 -fsS https://aboutip.infoSupply a public hostname and record type. Supported types are A, AAAA, MX, NS, TXT, CNAME, SOA and CAA. Requests go from our server to Cloudflare’s DNS-over-HTTPS resolver.
curl -fsS -G https://aboutip.info/api/dns --data-urlencode "name=aboutip.info" --data-urlencode "type=A"Invoke-RestMethod 'https://aboutip.info/api/dns?name=aboutip.info&type=AAAA'The JSON includes name, type, DNS status, dnssecValidated, resolver and records. Each record contains name, type, ttl (seconds) and value. HTTP 200 alone is not a successful DNS answer: check the DNS status and records too. An empty NOERROR answer may simply mean no record of that type.
Send a literal IPv4 or IPv6 address to /api/inspect to get its version, bit length, scope, expanded form and reverse lookup name. This does not establish ownership or reachability.
$ip = (Invoke-RestMethod https://aboutip.info/api/ip).ip
Invoke-RestMethod ("https://aboutip.info/api/inspect?ip=" + [uri]::EscapeDataString($ip))To request PTR records, use /api/reverse?ip= with the encoded address instead. Inspection alone does not run a DNS lookup.
All pages, assets reaching the application, HEAD requests, errors and API endpoints share 40 accepted requests per source IP in any rolling 60 seconds. DNS and reverse-DNS calls also share a separate 30-lookup per-minute budget within that total. Switching endpoints or clients does not give you another allowance. People sharing a public IP share the allowance.
Read X-RateLimit-Limit and X-RateLimit-Remaining for the overall budget. A 429 response includes Retry-After; wait at least that many seconds before trying again. A HEAD request also counts.
curl -sSI https://aboutip.info/ipInvalid inputs return 400. Upstream lookup failures can return 502 or 503. Use timeouts, handle non-success responses and avoid tight retry loops. Cache observations in your own script when appropriate; personalized IP responses are not shared-cacheable. This casual-use service has no uptime guarantee.