Member Avatar for epicasian

Hey,

I'm trying to set up a Home Server with one of my old computers. The problem is, that if I try to look up the IP address of that computer with one of the IP address website (like whatismyip.com); I get the same IP Address from my current desktop.

My question is that: is there a way to actually find the correct IP of the Home Server PC I have set up?

Thank you in advance, all help is appreciated,
~Asian

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Short, practical follow‑up to what and covered — extra steps and gotchas when you’ve forwarded ports so your home server stays reachable and safe.

Reserve a stable LAN address

  • Make the router give the server the same local IP every time (DHCP reservation) or set a static IPv4 on the server outside the router’s DHCP pool. That prevents your port‑forward rule from breaking when the server reboots or the DHCP lease renews.

Verify the service and firewall

  • Confirm the service is actually listening on the expected port on the server (Linux: sudo ss -tuln; Windows: netstat -an | findstr LISTENING).
  • Allow the port in the server OS firewall and in the router’s forwarded rule. Only open the minimal ports you need.

Secure exposure

  • Limit exposure: use SSH keys instead of passwords, enable HTTPS (use a trusted certificate), and turn off services you don’t need. Add fail2ban or similar rate‑limit/blocking for repeated login attempts. Keep the OS and apps patched.

Troubleshooting from outside

  • Test from outside your LAN (use a phone on cellular data or ask a friend). If it still fails, check the router’s WAN/Internet IP — if it’s a private address (10.x.x.x, 172.16–31.x.x, or 192.168.x.x) your ISP or another upstream device is doing NAT (double NAT / CGNAT), which prevents plain port forwarding. In that case ask the ISP for a public IP, use a VPN/reverse‑tunnel to a VPS, or use a third‑party tunneling service.

Final note: forwarding solved reachability, but for a long‑term server pick a stable LAN IP, add dynamic DNS if your WAN IP changes, and harden services before exposing them to the Internet.

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Member Avatar for ryan461

The reason for this, is of Network Address translation or NAT. That will show what ever public IP address you have. Everything on your internal network uses a private IP address to talk to one another. And when they need something from the internet, your router translates that to the public IP you see on whatismyip.com.

To find out of the IP of a local machine.

Click start, run, type cmd. (Or if using vista or 7, type cmd in the search). Run cmd or click on it.

type ipconfig

you will see some information, and the Local area connection is the primary wired connection with the IP address you have.

Member Avatar for epicasian

I figured out that all I needed to do was forward the ports that I needed to access outside my local network.

Thanks,
~Asian

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