Unique IP Address Extractor
Understanding IP Addresses and Extraction
The Unique IP Address Extractor is a powerful online tool designed to quickly scan a block of text and identify all unique Internet Protocol (IP) addresses present. This is particularly useful for network administrators, security analysts, and developers who need to quickly parse log files, configuration settings, or large documents to inventory network assets or track communication endpoints. The tool differentiates between common IP types: WAN (Public) IPv4, LAN (Private) IPv4, and IPv6 addresses.
The process of IP extraction relies on Regular Expressions (Regex), which are sequences of characters that define a search pattern. A precise regex pattern is crucial for accurately distinguishing valid IP formats from other numbers in the text.
Types of IP Addresses
IP addresses are fundamental to network communication, serving as unique identifiers for devices. They are categorized based on their format and usage scope.
WAN (Public) IPv4 Addresses
These are addresses used on the Wide Area Network (WAN), meaning they are routable on the public internet. They allow devices to communicate globally. A typical IPv4 address consists of four numbers (octets), each ranging from 0 to 255, separated by dots.
The range for these public addresses excludes the special private ranges defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in RFC 1918.
LAN (Private) IPv4 Addresses
These addresses are reserved for use within a Local Area Network (LAN) and are not directly routable on the public internet. Network Address Translation (NAT) is typically used by a router to allow devices with private IPs to access the internet. The defined private ranges are:
- Class A: \(10.0.0.0\) to \(10.255.255.255\) (or \(10.0.0.0/8\))
- Class B: \(172.16.0.0\) to \(172.31.255.255\) (or \(172.16.0.0/12\))
- Class C: \(192.168.0.0\) to \(192.168.255.255\) (or \(192.168.0.0/16\))
Our tool identifies and separates these private IPs for local network analysis.
IPv6 Addresses
The Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) was developed to address the exhaustion of IPv4 addresses. IPv6 addresses are 128-bit hexadecimal numbers, typically represented as eight groups of four hexadecimal digits separated by colons. They support various notations, including compression of zero fields and use of embedded IPv4 addresses. An example of an IPv6 address is \(2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334\), which can be compressed to \(2001:db8:85a3::8a2e:370:7334\).
How the Extraction Works
The calculator performs the following steps:
- The input text is scanned using a comprehensive regex pattern to find all potential IPv4 and IPv6 matches.
- All discovered IPs are passed through a uniqueness check to ensure no duplicates are reported.
- Each unique IPv4 address is classified as either LAN (Private) or WAN (Public) by checking it against the reserved RFC 1918 private address ranges.
- IPv6 addresses are identified by the presence of colons (:) and separated into their own category.
- The results are presented in separate, sortable tables, ordered by their original appearance in the text for easy cross-referencing with the source material.
This process ensures accurate, categorized, and ordered reporting of all unique IP network identifiers in your data.