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.

Answer 2

Simply use superagent

var superagent = require('superagent');
var getip = function () {
  superagent
    .get('http://ip.cn/')
    .set('User-Agent', 'curl/7.37.1')
    .end(function (err, res) {
      if (err) {
        console.log(err);
      }
      var ip = res.text.match(/\d+\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+/)[0];
      console.log(ip)
      // Here is the result
    });
};

Answer 3

Another little node module is ext-ip. The difference is, that you can use different response options, matching your coding style. It's ready to use out of the box ...

Promise

let extIP = require('ext-ip')();

extIP.get().then(ip => {
    console.log(ip);
})
.catch(err => {
    console.error(err);
});

Events

let extIP = require('ext-ip')();

extIP.on("ip", ip => {
    console.log(ip);
});

extIP.on("err", err => {
    console.error(err);
});

extIP();

Callback

let extIP = require('ext-ip')();

extIP((err, ip) => {
    if( err ){
        throw err;
    }

    console.log(ip);
});

Answer 4

Edit: This was written back in 2013... The site is gone. I'm leaving the example request code for now unless anyone complains but go for the accepted answer.

---

http://fugal.net/ip.cgi was similar to that one.

or you can

require('http').request({
    hostname: 'fugal.net',
    path: '/ip.cgi',
    agent: false
    }, function(res) {
    if(res.statusCode != 200) {
        throw new Error('non-OK status: ' + res.statusCode);
    }
    res.setEncoding('utf-8');
    var ipAddress = '';
    res.on('data', function(chunk) { ipAddress += chunk; });
    res.on('end', function() {
        // ipAddress contains the external IP address
    });
    }).on('error', function(err) {
    throw err;
}).end();

Ref: http://www.nodejs.org/api/http.html#http_http_request_options_callback

Answer 5

node.js has a lot of great built in modules you can use without including any external dependencies. you can make this file.
WhatsMyIpAddress.js

const http = require('http');

function WhatsMyIpAddress(callback) {
    const options = {
        host: 'ipv4bot.whatismyipaddress.com',
        port: 80,
        path: '/'
    };
    http.get(options, res => {
        res.setEncoding('utf8');
        res.on("data", chunk => callback(chunk, null));
    }).on('error', err => callback(null, err.message));
}

module.exports = WhatsMyIpAddress;

Then call it in your main.js like this.

main.js

const WhatsMyIpAddress = require('./src/WhatsMyIpAddress');
WhatsMyIpAddress((data,err) => {
   console.log('results:', data, err);
});

Answer 6

Can do the same as what they do in Python to get external IP, connect to some website and get your details from the socket connection:

const net = require('net');
const client = net.connect({port: 80, host:"google.com"}, () => {
  console.log('MyIP='+client.localAddress);
  console.log('MyPORT='+client.localPort);
});

*Unfortunately cannot find the original Python Example anymore as reference..

---

Update 2019: Using built-in http library and public API from https://whatismyipaddress.com/api

const http = require('http');

var options = {
  host: 'ipv4bot.whatismyipaddress.com',
  port: 80,
  path: '/'
};

http.get(options, function(res) {
  console.log("status: " + res.statusCode);

  res.on("data", function(chunk) {
    console.log("BODY: " + chunk);
  });
}).on('error', function(e) {
  console.log("error: " + e.message);
});

Tested with Node.js v0.10.48 on Amazon AWS server