What Is My IP?

Network diagnostics · UNC Information Technology Services

Frequently Asked Questions

Browse common questions below. For additional help or to share feedback, contact the ITS Service Desk.

What you see

Every visitor sees your IP address, internet provider, approximate geolocation, and DNS security filtering status. On-campus and VPN users additionally see:

  • Campus network and VLAN assignment
  • DHCP and network configuration details
  • Network Access Control (NAC) details, including switch port and connection policy
  • Wi-Fi connection details — SSID, access point name, and signal quality (for Meraki wireless)
  • Building location map for wired and wireless connections

Knowing these details helps diagnose connectivity problems and confirm that a VPN connection is active before accessing IP-restricted resources.

Off-campus visitors see their IP address, internet provider, approximate location, and DNS security filtering status. Campus network details — VLAN assignment, NAC information, and building location — are not available from off-campus addresses.

If you are connected via the UNC VPN, the tool will recognize your VPN address and show campus network details as if you were on campus.

Several things can cause this:

  • You are connected to a guest or visitor Wi-Fi network rather than the main campus network
  • Your device is using a personal mobile hotspot instead of campus Wi-Fi or a wired connection
  • Your device is on a specialized network segment not recognized as a standard campus address range
  • A VPN from another organization is active, routing your traffic through a different IP

Try connecting to the main campus Wi-Fi (eduroam) or a wired network port and reloading the page.

Most general IP lookup tools show the address your device presents to arbitrary servers on the internet. This tool is different — it tests connectivity specifically to the UNC campus network. That distinction matters: a VPN connection routes your traffic through a campus address, so this tool shows your VPN IP while a general lookup site would still show your home internet address.

Additionally, most lookup sites force a connection over IPv4. This tool tests both IPv4 and IPv6 separately and shows whichever your device uses by default when reaching campus — which may be IPv6. Both addresses are correct; your device can use different protocols to reach different destinations simultaneously.

Campus network

Campus refers to the computer network providing service to hundreds of buildings, predominantly in Chapel Hill, NC. The campus network extends to a number of remote locations throughout North Carolina. More information is available in the Campus Subnets help article.

Network Access Control is a system that manages which devices are allowed to connect to the campus network and under what conditions. When you connect, NAC checks whether your device meets security requirements — such as being registered or having current software. The connection policy shown in this tool reflects the access level your device has been granted.

UNC Information Technology Services provides malware and phishing protection through the domain name system (DNS). Devices using campus DNS servers receive this protection automatically — no software or configuration changes required. More information is available in the DNS Security Filtering Service help article.

Every time your device connects to a website, it asks a DNS server to translate the domain name into an IP address. The DNS provider check reveals which server your device is actually sending those queries to — similar to what dedicated DNS leak test websites do, but built directly into this tool.

This matters in a few situations:

  • On campus: you should see UNC or Akamai listed as your DNS provider. UNC's campus DNS servers forward all queries through Akamai to apply the DNS security filtering layer, so Akamai is the expected result for devices correctly using campus DNS. If you see your home internet provider instead, your device is not using campus DNS and will not receive DNS security protection.
  • On VPN: the UNC VPN pushes campus DNS servers to your device, so you should also see UNC or Akamai here. If you see your home ISP instead, your VPN has a DNS leak — queries are bypassing the tunnel and going directly to your ISP, which can expose your browsing activity and bypass campus DNS security.
  • Using a privacy DNS service: services like Cloudflare (1.1.1.1) or Google (8.8.8.8) will appear here if your device is configured to use them, which overrides your network's default DNS and may bypass campus DNS security filtering.

The provider name comes from a reverse lookup of the IP address returned by your DNS resolver, cross-referenced with ISP data from ip-api.com.

Privacy & location

This tool does not log or store your IP address. Site statistics track only aggregate counts — such as how many visits came from IPv4 vs. IPv6, or what general region visitors came from — but individual IP addresses are never written to disk. No cookies are used for tracking.

Yes. Your browser contacts up to three external services as part of the diagnostic checks:

  • ip-api.com — identifies your internet DNS provider and EDNS client subnet as part of the DNS information test.
  • ipify.org — checks what IPv4 address internet servers see for your connection. This is compared against the campus-detected address to identify split-tunnel VPN or campus NAT scenarios.
  • A configured test domain — if DNS security filtering is enabled, your browser attempts to reach a known test domain to determine whether filtering is active.

In all cases your IP address is visible to any internet service you contact, so these checks do not expose anything beyond what is inherent to browsing the web. No data from these checks is sent back to UNC servers beyond the aggregate filtering result.

IP geolocation is a city-level estimate based on where an internet provider registered its address block — not your physical location or GPS position. A residential ISP may register its IP ranges at a regional office or data center, so your location might appear as a different city or part of the state. For campus addresses, location is set to Chapel Hill regardless of where on the network you are connected.

Yes, the service IP-API.com being used offers a data correction page for submitting requests.

Technical

The Report button in the navigation bar generates a print-ready summary of everything shown on the home page — your IP address, connection type, campus network details, device information, and IPv4/IPv6 connectivity test results. The button activates automatically once your connection details have finished loading.

Clicking Report opens a formatted page in a new browser window. From there, use your browser's Print function (Ctrl+P on Windows / Cmd+P on Mac) and choose Save as PDF as the destination. The resulting file can be emailed to the ITS Service Desk or attached to a help ticket.

If a popup blocker prevents the window from opening, allow popups for this site and try again.

The speed test embedded on this site uses Ookla Speedtest Custom, the same technology behind Speedtest.net. It measures your download speed, upload speed, and latency by transferring data between your device and a test server.

By default, Ookla selects the closest available server. To measure your connection specifically to the UNC campus network, manually select UNC Chapel Hill from the server list within the widget, or use the UNC Chapel Hill server directly on Speedtest.net.

Speed test results reflect your connection to that specific server at that moment — network congestion, Wi-Fi signal strength, and VPN overhead can all affect the numbers.

Both come from geolocation data associated with your IP address, but they describe different things:

  • Internet provider is the company that sells you internet access — the legal business name registered as the owner of your IP address range. Examples: "Charter Communications", "Comcast Cable Communications LLC", "AT&T Enterprises LLC".
  • Organization is the entity registered as the operator of your specific IP address block with the regional internet registry. For home users this is often a brand or subsidiary name (e.g., "Spectrum" is Charter's consumer brand). For universities, businesses, and enterprises that manage their own IP allocations, it is typically the institution itself — for example, a UNC campus device would show "University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill" as the organization.

The two fields are often the same or closely related for residential connections, but can differ significantly for business and campus users.

No. For security reasons, this tool only displays information about the client device communicating with it.

This application is intended for browser-based use, but it is powered by an API that can be accessed directly. API responses and data structures may change over time without notice.