Get the IP address of a computer

Update: This no longer works, the latest browsers do not expose the internal IP address.

Some software packages that allow remote control of another computer connect using the name of the target computer or its IP address needs to be input.

Using the computer name does not always result in a successful connection but using the IP address does.

Using websites like whatismyipaddress.com will show the external IP address. If you have a local network the internal IP address for the computer is not displayed.

Getting the local IP address can be done by using the Command prompt to run IPCONFIG. This can be difficult for non-technical users.

Recently I found a GitHub project that uses client side JavaScript on a web page to query a STUN server used for WebRTC and returns the internal IP address of the computer.

Asking a user to navigate to a web page is simpler than getting them to run IPCONFIG and interpret the results.

This is how to create a web page to get the users computers IP address.

Steps

• Download the project from GitHub.
• Create a web page with the JavaScript embedded in the page
• Load the file to a Google drive
• Make the file public
• Use tinyurl.com to make a custom URL

Usage

Ask the user to type the URL into the address bar of a browser. Only Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome will work. Internet Explorer 11 has not implemented WebRTC. Ask them to read out the internal IP address.