Network tools
IP lookup
Find out which network an IP address belongs to, the organisation it is allocated to, and where to report abuse coming from it.
Look up an IP address
IPv4 or IPv6 — 27.34.16.1 or 2001:db8::1. The answer comes back from the regional registry that allocated the range.
The lookup runs in your browser against rdap.org, which passes it to the registry that holds the record. Nothing you type is sent to us or stored here.
About IP Whois lookup
This tool retrieves the registry record for an IP address: the range it sits in, the organisation that range is allocated to, the country on the record, the dates it was allocated and last changed, and the contact for reporting abuse from it.
It is the first thing to check when you are troubleshooting a network problem, working out who runs a server you are talking to, or tracing where unwanted traffic came from.
What each field means
- Range and CIDR — the block the address belongs to. Registries hand out blocks, not single addresses, so the record describes the whole range.
- Network — the name the holder gave the block.
- Organisation — who the block is allocated to: an ISP, a hosting company, a university, an enterprise.
- Allocation — how it was assigned. A direct allocation comes from the registry itself; a reassignment is an ISP handing part of its space to a customer.
- Country — the country the allocation is registered in.
- Allocated and Updated — the dates on the registry record, not on the machine using the address.
- Abuse contact — where to report spam, scanning or an attack coming from the address. This is the field that gets something done.
What it does not tell you
A registry record describes an allocation, not a person and not a street address. The country field is where the block is registered, which is often not where the machine sits — a large provider can reassign one block across a whole region.
Nothing in the record says who was using the address at a given moment. Only the provider holding the range can answer that, and only through their own legal process. Treat what you find here as a starting point for a report, not as an identification.
Where the answer comes from
Five regional internet registries divide the address space between them: ARIN for North America, RIPE NCC for Europe and the Middle East, APNIC for the Asia-Pacific region including Nepal, LACNIC for Latin America and AFRINIC for Africa.
The lookup uses RDAP, the machine-readable replacement for WHOIS that all five run. Your browser asks rdap.org, which forwards the query to whichever registry holds the address, and the answer comes straight back to your browser. We never see the address you typed, and nothing is logged on this page.