Understanding Router IP Addresses: How Many Exist and How to Find Them in a LAN Setup

Yes, routers indeed have IP addresses - in fact, they typically have multiple addresses because they sit between different networks. Each interface on a router requires an IP address to communicate within its connected network segment.

A router maintains at least two IP addresses:

One for the LAN (internal) interface
One for the WAN (external) interface
Additional addresses for any other network interfaces

In enterprise environments, routers often have multiple interfaces connecting various network segments, each with its own IP address.

Here are methods to discover your router's LAN IP address across different operating systems:

Windows Command Line


ipconfig | findstr "Default Gateway"

Linux/macOS Terminal


netstat -nr | grep default
# or alternatively
ip route show | grep default

Python Script to Detect Gateway


import socket
import struct

def get_default_gateway():
    """Read the default gateway directly from /proc/net/route"""
    with open("/proc/net/route") as fh:
        for line in fh:
            fields = line.strip().split()
            if fields[1] == '00000000':
                return socket.inet_ntoa(struct.pack("


Common scenarios where routers have multiple IP addresses:

Multi-homed routers: Connecting to multiple ISPs with different WAN IPs
VLAN configurations: Each VLAN interface requires a unique IP
Virtual routing instances: Running multiple logical routers on one device
Management interfaces: Dedicated IPs for out-of-band management


interface GigabitEthernet0/0
 ip address 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0
!
interface GigabitEthernet0/1
 ip address 203.0.113.2 255.255.255.252
!
interface VLAN10
 ip address 10.10.10.1 255.255.255.0

Common diagnostic commands:

# Ping the router's LAN IP
ping 192.168.1.1

# Trace route to confirm path through router
tracert www.example.com

# Check ARP cache for router's MAC address
arp -a



Routers inherently possess multiple IP addresses due to their fundamental role in network traffic management. Every router has:

A WAN (public) IP assigned by your ISP (e.g., 203.0.113.42)
A LAN (private) IP (typically 192.168.1.1 or 10.0.0.1)
Optional secondary IPs for VLANs or multiple subnets

Here are multiple methods to discover router IPs on different platforms:
# Windows Command Prompt:
ipconfig | findstr "Default Gateway"

# Linux/macOS Terminal:
ip route show | grep default
# OR
netstat -rn | grep default

# Python script (cross-platform):
import socket
import subprocess

def get_default_gateway():
    if socket.gethostname() == 'nt':
        result = subprocess.run(['ipconfig'], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
        return [line.split()[-1] for line in result.stdout.decode().split('\n') if 'Default Gateway' in line]
    else:
        result = subprocess.run(['ip', 'route'], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
        return [line.split()[2] for line in result.stdout.decode().split('\n') if 'default via' in line]

In enterprise environments, routers often have:

Multiple WAN IPs for load balancing
VLAN interfaces (e.g., 192.168.1.1 for VLAN 1, 192.168.2.1 for VLAN 2)
VIPs (Virtual IPs) for redundancy protocols like HSRP or VRRP

Consider this typical router configuration:
    [ISP]
      |
      | (WAN: 203.0.113.42)
    [Router]
   /   |   \
  /    |    \
LAN1  LAN2  DMZ
(192.168.1.1) (192.168.2.1) (172.16.1.1)

When dealing with multiple router IPs:

Verify connectivity to each interface
Check routing tables (route print on Windows, ip route on Linux)
Use traceroute to identify path discrepancies