This is an original planning guide. It is not a vendor manual, an official standard, or legal advice. Example addresses use documentation ranges. Review every command before you paste it.
What this hour is for
What Is My IP shows the address the site sees for this browser. That is the address of the path you are on, which may be a NAT pool, a VPN, or a carrier address. It is not a unique name for a person.
It changes when the pool changes, when you join a VPN, or when the carrier rotates it. Write the address, the path you were on, and the time. Do not file it as a permanent identity.
Browser network info is local to the browser. It is not a scan. Do not use either tool to collect addresses of other people.
If a service you run needs a stable address, that is a design ticket for an address you were allocated, not a screenshot of a web page.
The change you can finish
Apply nothing during the writing of the note. When the lab window opens, it is one change on the device named in the ticket. Read the draft, then the device, then decide.
Rollback is the file or the revision you saved first. You do not invent a rollback after the only copy is gone.
- Open the tool from the network you mean.
- Write the address and the time.
- Write whether a VPN was on.
- Say if this is a pool or an allocated address.
- Do not treat it as a person's identity.
- Stop.
Mistakes that outlive the command
What Is My Public IP and Why Does It Change? goes wrong in a small set of ways. The list is here so the ticket can forbid them before the window.
- A screenshot filed as identity.
- Someone else's session checked.
- A pool address hardcoded as if it were stable.
- A hunt for where a person lives.
Decisions to write down
One decision for What Is My Public IP and Why Does It Change?: The path is the one in the ticket. The address and time are written. VPN state is written. And it is not called a person's location.
Checks before you call it done
Confirm this before you call the change done: The address is in the ticket. The path is named. Stability is a yes or a no. No other person was checked. And a stable address, if needed, is a separate design. If one of those fails, stop.
Record the address, the path, and the time.
It is not a person's identity.Before you leave the device
What Is My Public IP and Why Does It Change? ends when the hostname on the device matches the hostname in the ticket. If it does not, you are on the wrong box. Stop. A command that succeeded on the wrong box is not progress.
The draft stays a draft until a person has read the names in it. A generator does not log into the device and does not know which interface is the uplink. You delete a line that names a device, a zone, or a prefix you did not write down.
0.0.0.0/0 is not kept because a sample included it. A source you can say is the source you keep. 192.0.2.0/24, 198.51.100.0/24, 203.0.113.0/24, and 2001:db8::/32 are documentation. They belong in the note. They are not prefixes you type onto a production device because they appeared in a draft.
prompt-for-this is a reminder that a secret is missing. It is not a password, a key, a community string, or a pre-shared key you save in the ticket or in git. The real secret stays in the store.
One change is the window. A VLAN and a routing protocol and a VPN do not share it. If two things move and the result is wrong, you will not know which one did it. The next feature waits for its own page.
If the same step fails twice, stop for the day. The failure is the result. Adding a forum command beside a half-applied config produces a device nobody can rebuild. Restore the copy you took first.
A second person reads the device name and the change aloud. If they cannot find them in the ticket, the note is not done. Silence is not agreement. Then leave the device alone.
This page is a planning guide. It is not a vendor manual, not an official standard, and not a permission to touch a network you do not administer. The pillar guide owns the wider design. This page owns one lab proof.
Tools for this guide
These tools run in the browser on this site. They do not log into your machines.
Related pillar guides
More in this cluster
The pillar for this page, and the next published pages filed with it.