How to get my external IP address with node.js?

Question

I\'m using node.js and I need to get my external IP address, provided by my ISP. Is there a way to achieve this without using a service like http://myexternalip.com/raw ?

Answer 1

The simplest answer, based on experience is that you can't get your external IP in most cases without using an external service, since you'll typically be behind a NAT or shielded by a firewall. I say in most cases, since there may be situations where you can get it from your router, but it is too case specific to provide a general answer.

What you want is simply to choose your favourite http client in NodeJS and find a maintained server that simply responds with the IP address in the body. You can also use a package, but you should see if it is still using a maintained remote server.

While there are plenty of examples already, here is one that first tries IPv6 and then falls back to IPv4. It leverages axios, since that is what I am comfortable with. Also, unless the optional parameter debug is set to true, the result is either a value or undefined.

const axios = require('axios');

// replace these URLs with whatever is good for you
const remoteIPv4Url = 'http://ipv4bot.whatismyipaddress.com/';
const remoteIPv6Url = 'http://ipv6bot.whatismyipaddress.com/';

// Try getting an external IPv4 address.
async function getExternalIPv4(debug = false) {
  try {
    const response = await axios.get(remoteIPv4Url);
    if (response && response.data) {
      return response.data;
    }
  } catch (error) {
    if (debug) {
      console.log(error);
    }
  }
  return undefined;
}

// Try getting an external IPv6 address.
async function getExternalIPv6(debug = false) {
  try {
    const response = await axios.get(remoteIPv6Url);
    if (response && response.data) {
      return response.data;
    }
  } catch (error) {
    if (debug) {
      console.log(error);
    }
  }
  return undefined;
}

async function getExternalIP(debug = false) {
  let address;
  // Try IPv6 and then IPv4
  address = await getExternalIPv6(debug);
  if (!address) {
    address = await getExternalIPv4(debug);
  }
  return address;
}

module.exports { getExternalIP, getExternalIPv4, getExternalIPv6 }

Feel free to suggest improvements.