It irritates me that when I execute the command “IPConfig” to get my current DHCP IP Address, I get a large list of all kind of adapters in which I am not interested. I then have to scroll up in the Command Prompt windows to find my IP Address.
As a project of my own to get to learn PowerShell more, I decided to make a PowerShell Function which would give me the current IP Address. As I went along, I added an extra feature which displayed my current external IP Address.
Below is the PowerShell Function:
Function GetMyIP
{
$NetworkAdapter = gwmi win32_networkadapterconfiguration | where {$_.DHCPEnabled -and $_.DNSDomain -ne $null}
$SourcePage = "href="http://automation.whatismyip.com/n09230945.asp">http://automation.whatismyip.com/n09230945.asp"
$WebClient = new-object System.Net.WebClient
$ExternalIP = $WebClient.downloadString($SourcePage)
Write-host "IP Address IPV4: "$networkadapter.IPAddress[0]
Write-host "IP Address IPV6: "$networkadapter.IPAddress[1]
Write-host "Gateway Address:" $Networkadapter.DefaultIpGateway
write-host "External IP Address:" $ExternalIP
}
This is useful and a good start, but you should take this further and write objects to the pipeline. For example, right now if you wanted to save the output to a text file you couldn’t. Here’s an alternative:
Function Get-MyIP
{
$NetworkAdapter = get-wmiobject win32_networkadapterconfiguration | where {$_.DHCPEnabled -and $_.DNSDomain -ne $null}
$SourcePage = “http://automation.whatismyip.com/n09230945.asp”
$WebClient = new-object System.Net.WebClient
$ExternalIP = $WebClient.downloadString($SourcePage)
New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property @{
IPV4=$networkadapter.IPAddress[0]
IPV6=$networkadapter.IPAddress[1]
Gateway=$Networkadapter.DefaultIpGateway[0]
ExternalIP=$ExternalIP
Computername=$NetworkAdapter.__SERVER
}
}
You get the same information but this writes a pipelined object. You could extend this to get information from remote computers as well which could come in handy for troubleshooting. Finally, a recommended scripting best practice is to use the same verb-noun naming convention. Notice the slight tweak I made. This makes the function more discoverable. Hope this helps.
Thank you very much Jeffery.
)
I’m going to try that it tomorrow, I noticed my script also fails if you are not connected to a domain (Cannot index into a null array).
You’re suggestion of using the verb-noun naming was something I thought about when I was driving home. I should have seen it before, but I was a bit excited I got it to work, so I posted it a bit to soon (It might seem a simple thing to be excited about to you guru’s, but we have a saying here in holland: “who’m ever doesn’t appreciate the little things, isn’t ready for big things
Hi Jeffery,
I updated the script a bit, this one will now find active adapters and return the information for all of them. When a adapter has no gateway (VMware adapters for instance in my situation), it will not query for the external IP.
Function Get-MyIP2
{
$externalIP = “”
$activeAdapters = Get-WmiObject Win32_NetworkAdapter -Filter ‘NetConnectionStatus=2′
Foreach ($NWadapter in $activeadapters)
{
$Adapter = get-wmiobject win32_networkadapterconfiguration | where {$_.Description -eq $NWadapter.Name}
if ($Adapter.DefaultIPGateway -ne $null)
{
$SourcePage = “http://automation.whatismyip.com/n09230945.asp”
$WebClient = new-object System.Net.WebClient
$ExternalIP = $WebClient.downloadString($SourcePage)
}
New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property @{
IPV4=$Adapter.IPAddress[0]
IPV6=$Adapter.IPAddress[1]
Gateway=[string]$Adapter.DefaultIpGateway
ExternalIP=$ExternalIP
Computername=$Adapter.__SERVER
}
}
}