How do I get the external IP of my server using PHP?

Question

I often hear people say to use \"$_SERVER[\'SERVER_ADDR\']\", but that returns the LAN IP of my server (e.g. 192.168.1.100). I want the external IP.

Answer 1

Also you could get IP via DNS A record based on hostname or server name:

$dnsARecord = dns_get_record($_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'],DNS_A);
if ( $dnsARecord ) echo 'IPv4: '.$dnsARecord[0]['ip'];
$dnsARecord = dns_get_record($_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'],DNS_AAAA);
if ( $dnsARecord ) echo 'IPv6: '.$dnsARecord[0]['ip'];

You could also use SERVER_NAME instead of HTTP_HOST if one of the two does not give what you want.

However, this is assuming that your server is configured correctly in correspondence with DNS. This may not always be the case. See my other answer using ifconfig that is perhaps better.