How to find unknown IP address of a device in Network?

Unknown IP address

Today, I will explain to you how to find an unknown IP address of the device in the Network. Suppose, you want to access a Modem, a Wi-Fi router, or any other device without any clue of it’s IP address.

For any reason, you are not willing to Reset the device. And all you want is the device to work with the configuration it already has.

Either you are a home user, and had forgotten the IP address, or maybe you have got that in your organization in a configured state. In any case, you need to find out the IP address of that device without resetting the device.

Let’s start from scratch and find out how to find an unknown IP address of a device in Network.

Connect the device with unknown IP address

find unknown IP address of a device in Network: Connection

Connect your PC with the device like one shown in the above figure.

If it is a DSL/ADSL modem, it will have ports marked as LAN or Ethernet. A minimum of 1 port up to 4 ports may be available there.

If it is a Wi-Fi router, an Access point, or a repeater like equipment, it may have single port marked as Internet or WAN and other ports marked as Ethernet or LAN.

You have to connect your device with the Ethernet or LAN port.
Now, there may be two possibilities. Either the device may have pre-configured DHCP or the DHCP in a disabled state.

To know more about assigning dynamic and static IP, Please Go through this post.

Find out unknown IP with DHCP enabled device.

If you are lucky enough to get the device with running DHCP service, it will automatically assign IP to your PC. Just set your LAN adapter to accept an automatic IP from DHCP, and check whether it gets any IP or not.

As you can see from the above images, the Ethernet status and ipconfig/all command will show the status of your PC IP and that of the DHCP server too. The IP of the DHCP server, Gateway, or the DNS server is the same. That is the IP of your modem, Wi-Fi access point, or any other connected device.

So, you find out the IP address of an unknown device so easily. What if the DHCP of the device is not running? Let’s come to that point.

For all the queries related to the ipconfig, checking IP status, etc. please refer to this topic How to assign Manual IP.

Find IP address if the DHCP is not functioning

If the DHCP of the of the device is not running, your PC will not get an automatic IP assigned to it. You may assume that it must have an IP address of the private IP range.

The private IP ranges are as follows –

10.0.0.0/8

172.16.0.0/12

192.168.0.0/24

The details about the IP ranges are in the chapter Classful IP address and Classless IP address.

Make sure that the device is and your PC has a working connection. You may check it from the LED indication of the device or the Ethernet status of your PC.

Now, what all you can do is assign an IP address of private range to your PC. Don’t worry about the IP classes, subnets, etc. Just assign a private IP to your PC. I Hope your IP will not conflict with that of the device.There is a little chance of happening such coincidence, even if it happens, you will discover the IP address you were looking for. If it is so, you may get the “duplicate” status (Follow the link to read more about Duplicate IP) in ipconfig/all command. There is a little chance of happening such coincidence, even if it happens, you will discover the IP address you were looking for.

The arp -a command

Now from the command prompt, run the ARP Command arp -a. It will display the list of MAC and IP resolution table. I will show the results of arp -a command in the figures below, and explain them one by one.

I assigned the IP of Class A, with a slash value /24. And run the ARP command. The result will show you the IP address of connected device and other ARP statistics. Let’s have a look.

find unknown IP address of a device in Network: IP assign
find unknown IP address of a device in Network: ARP request

Explanation

The first image shows the IP configuration, which is self-explanatory.

The second image shows the IP and MAC table resolved by the ARP command.

Now, look at the ARP table in the above image.

The first IP address 10.255.255.255 is the broadcast IP corresponding to your PC IP.

The second one is the IP address of the connected device, the IP address of the device which you are looking for is 192.168.0.254.

Then you can see four IP addresses of 224 and 239 series, which are Class D multicast IPs.

The last one is the Universal Broadcast IP 255.255.255.255.

find unknown IP address of a device : IP conflict

If you have an IP conflict, you will get the result like this. Your broadcast IP will be in the APIPA range. Though it will show the IP of the connected device, as you can see in the above image as shown.

If you have two network interfaces working in your PC, like one Ethernet and one Wi-Fi interface. You will get the result like this as shown below.

Find unknown IP of Device : Two interface ARP

In any case, you will get the IP address of an unknown device with the help of the ARP command.

I wrote this post as a response to the mail I have received. I hope this clarifies the query. If any of the readers want to ask any specific tip, they are free to mail from the contact page.

Share the article if you find it helpful.

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