How to perform a full scan of an IP address? Step by step guide

Surely you have already heard about the IP adress, but few people really know what it is about. First of all, IP means “Internet Protocol” or “Internet Protocol”. When referring to the term IP address, it is the number that is assigned to or chosen by a user within the network.

Keep in mind that both the web pages you enter, the routers you use or any computer from which you access the Internet. Thanks to it, it is possible to identify when people are connected on the network.

In addition, they can be distinguished two types of IP addresses: the public and the private. It should be noted that by analyzing them, information that can be very useful is obtained. Therefore, in this post we explain How to perform a full analysis of an IP address?

What is an IP address scan and what is it done for?

All IP addresses They are available to users and are registered in databases, which makes it possible to easily collect information. In this sense, the analysis of the IP address of a device They are used to identify and locate a computer on a network, either internal or external.

Analysis of both public and private addresses can be done. In the case of analysis of public IP addresses It seeks to keep a machine always identified within the global scope, that is, within the Internet network in general. In contrast, in the case of analysis of private IPs, allow identifying the machine within a specific ecosystem. Notably public IPs are not repeated, while private IPs can be replicated in different ecosystems.

This means that, for example, within a home network you will not get the same private IP number. However, this number can be repeated in devices that belong to other networks. An interesting fact that is worth noting is that IP addresses are made up of four numbers up to three digits, which are kept separated by three points. In this way, the values of each number vary between 0 and 255. As a consequence, thousands of combinations can be generated.

Within this numbering, there are three ranges that are reserved for private IPs. These are:

A class:0.0.0 to 10.255.255.255.
Class B:16.0.0 to 172.31.255.255.
Class C:168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255.

The A class they correspond to large networks as in the case of international companies. Those of Class B They are reserved for medium-sized networks, such as university networks. Finally, those of Class C they are those assigned to smaller networks such as those for domestic use.

What kind of tools are used to analyze an IP?

It must be taken into consideration that data related to an IP address is private, but really any user can have access to them if they know how to perform the procedure correctly. Although There are methods to make the extraction of information related to the IP address more complicated., on the Internet you will find a range of options to carry out the analysis of an IP and thus know all kinds of data.

Therefore, below we mention the main tools that will help you.

Vermiip.es : Serves for know what is your Public IP.
Cualesmiip.com : It is another of the websites that allows you to automatically identify what your address is Public IP.
Iplookup.flagfox.net: If you have a IP adressAll you have to do is enter it on this website and you will generate a report with all the information available on that address.
Aruljohn.com/track.pl : This last option will will help to quickly analyze data on any IP address or a domain. You will know data such as the host name, the ISP or the country of origin.

Learn step by step how to perform a full IP address scan

If you want perform a full analysis of an IP address yourself, we will teach you step by step how to do it.

But it is necessary that you first identify whether or not you have a network mask:

Address with mask: It is the most general, because it is used by current routing protocols such as RIP2, OSPF, among others. These send the mask along with the IP address. This type of address is known as CIDR (Classless Inter-Domain Routing).
Address without mask: if an address comes without a mask, it is probably a classy address. In this case, the mask may be / 8, / 16 or / 24, belonging to a class A, B or C network.

Once you have that data, from the address and the mask you have to extract the addresses of:

The net.
The first host available.
The last host available.
Broadcast.

We are going to carry out the analysis starting from the IP 192.160.26.109/20:

Step 1

In the first step, the number of bits of the network and hosts will be obtained. The netmask is already known to be / 20. From there, you have to know how many bits it uses for hosts. Consequently, knowing that the IP has a total of 32 bits, a simple subtraction must be done: 32 – 20 = 12that is, 12 will be the bits you use for hosts.

Step 2

Once you have the network and host bits, you can calculate the IP address of the first and last host, the network address and the broadcast address. To do this, you have to binary the IP, since it has allowed us to know where we have the bits that correspond to the network, and how far the bits that correspond to the hosts.

Then, when passing the IP to binary, the bits that correspond to network and those used for hosts can be marked:

1 octet (192): 11000000.
2 octet (160): 10100000.
3 octet (26): 0001 1010.
4 octet (109): 01101101.

At last step, it could be seen that 12 bits are used for hosts.

So 12 bits should be selected from right to left, which will all be from the 4 octet + 4 bits from the 3 octet:

To identify the network address, 12 host bits will be set to zero.
If you want to know the address of the 1 host available, it will be the next IP address from the network.
To calculate the broadcast address, all 12 host bits are set to one.
Regarding the address of the last host available, it will be the one before the broadcast.

Step 3

In this step, they will change addresses from binary to decimal that were previously transformed. In this way, it would look like this:

Through this procedure, it is known that the network address 192.160.16.0 / 20, uses 20 bits for network, the number of allowed subnets is 1, and the number of hosts in that subnet is 4094 hosts. This result is obtained since 2 raised to 12, which corresponds to the number of bits for hosts, is equal to 4096. Then the result is obtained by subtracting 4096 – 2 bits (one bit for network and one for broadcast), which yields the figure of 4094.

After following all the steps explained, you will have at hand the information of an IP address referring to: