I am trying to setup PP to report my router's WAN IP via email. I have it simply pinging my ISP's domain, and the second hop should be that of my router's WAN-side address (the first hop correctly being the LAN side address).<br><br>Unfortunately, what is being reported as the router's WAN-side IP address is the actual IP address which the 4th octet's value being replaced with the value '1'.<br><br>I terminated the PPPoE session and allowed the router to autoreconnect several times and in each instance the new IP was being reports with the 4th octet's value being incorrectly reported as '1'.<br><br>Initially, I though that maybe what was being reported was abroadcase address, but that cannot be the case. If I get a legitimate IP addy ending in a value of, say, x.y.z.95 PingPlotter reports the WAN IP as being x.y.z.1!<br><br>Is this a limitation, problem, or something else?<br><br>

My setup is WIn98FE, SMC 7004 router running DHCP and PPPoE for my fiber-based ADSL broadband connection.<br><br>

I think your expectation is wrong. The first hop will be your SMC 7004 router's internal address, the second hop will be the device that your router uses as it's default gateway (assigned by your ISP) - i.e. the next port of call for each packet.<br><br>

You are correct, partially. The first hop shows the LAN-side IP address of the SMC 7004 router, which is a private IP address. The very next hop (#2) is a public address, which is neither one of the DNS IPs or the ISP's domain IP.<br><br>I associated the 2nd hop IP as belonging to the WAN-side IP because in each instance the first three octets were correct and in each instance the forth octet was a '1'.<br><br>The 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th hops have no DNSName, but the 2nd (that associated with my PPPoE session) and 6th (the ISP<br>'s domain name) hop was identified.<br><br>Since the PPPoE session in the router is establishing a PPP session, I wonder if its essentially hiding the WAN IP, and the x.y.z.1 public IP is that of the terminating router within the ISP's CO/CEV.<br><br>

I did a little experimenting. When you use PP over a PPP connection, it does not show the IP for the local end of the tunnel (predictable, because it is the same device as hop 1). The second hop is the IP address of the remote end of the tunnel. In my case, I used an NT server for the far end. The IP is specific to the tunnel - it is not the address of any of the network cards in the remote VPN server. The third and subsequent hops are on the remote network. <br><br><br>

The route that Ping Plotter shows is the OUTBOUND route. Your router's IP address isn't shown in this route list because most home wan/lan routers actually have multiple IP addresses - and the side you address from home isn't the same as the IP you're looking for.<br><br>Let's use an example. Let's say that your router at home is a NATting DHCP router that issues 10.0.0.x IP addresses to your home LAN. Now this router *also* has another IP address - the one issued by your ISP. This is on the WAN side of the router (while the 10.0.0.1 address is on the LAN side). When you trace out, hop 1 is your router - and you'll see 10.0.0.1 there. Now, the *next* hop is actually the gateway that the router goes through, not the actually router's issued IP address. The x.y.z.95, you'll never see because this address is never addressed from your side (your router passes the packets in from the 10.0.0.1 address, and then (like a hose) pushes it out the IP address that your ISP issued to you (x.y.z.95)). Because you only see one end (the end closest to you), you'll only see 10.0.0.1 and then x.y.z.1 (which is the gateway that the DHPC server at your ISP issued to your router). There's really no way you can see the IP address the ISP issued to you via trace route, unfortunately.<br><br>If you want to get your router's IP address, there are several ways that aren't terribly difficult. The IP addresses the outside hosts see you at is your ISP issued DNS address. To see this address, just hook up to a page that shows your IP address (this has to be generated on the server, though). I did a quick 15 second web search and got a link that tells you how in both .asp, or perlscript: <A HREF="http://www.chami.com/tips/internet/041498I.html" target="_new">http://www.chami.com/tips/internet/041498I.html</A> - look at the bottom of the page for perlscript of asp code you can put on a server of your own. Alternately, you can use a page that someone else has published - I use DNS wiz for my DNS services, and they have a page that shows your current IP address: <A HREF="http://www.dnswiz.com/dynping.asp" target="_new">http://www.dnswiz.com/dynping.asp</A>.<br><br>Hopefully, that will get you going in the right direction. Ping Plotter looks at things from your side of things - while what you're looking to do is look at the *other* side of things (from the outside in).<br><br>Good luck!<br><br>

Thanks Pete, that certainly explained it. Actually, in having PingPlotter email me results I noticed that I can inspect the MX header info of the email for the current [WAN] IP address. So, although I do not use the results of PP to acquire my WAN IP, I do use it for my means to an end.<br><br>