I imagine that a lot of our readers have had at least once been asked to enter their DNS server address, for example when configuring a new gaming console with online gameplay features, like the PlayStation 2, the PlayStation 3, the Xbox, or the Nintendo Wii.

If this is all you are interested about, you can skip to the next paragraph, but first maybe you should understand what a DNS server is. In our last article, I explained what is an IP address, and I told you that every computer connected to the Internet is assigned a specific and unique IP address. Anyhow, you have noticed that when accessing a website, you are not typing its IP address, but its domain name – for example, google.com. Well, this is possible thanks to the DNS or Domain Name System. The Domain Name System can be considered as a sort of phone book where human readable addresses – like google.com – are translated into their corresponding IP address. A much more technical description of the DNS system can be found on Wikipedia.

So, when you type google.com in your browser, your computer is connecting to a machine known as a DNS server, part of the aforementioned Domain Name System, which translates google.com into its corresponding IP address.

How Can I Find Out My DNS Server’s IP?

Depending on your operating system, there are different ways of finding out your current DNS server’s IP. Often, computers can use two different DNS servers – this is done to have a fail safe option in case the first DNS server in the list is not answering the request.

Find Out DNS Server Addresses on Windows Systems

1. Open a DOS prompt (Start -> Run -> Type “cmd” -> Press Enter)
2. Now type
   ipconfig /all
3. Look for the DNS Servers line to get your DNS addresses

Find Out Dns Server Addresses on UNIX-based Systems (Linux,Mac OS X)

1. Open a shell prompt (on Mac OS-X, open Terminal)
2. Type the following command:
   cat /etc/resolv.conf
3. You should now see something like this if you are behind a router that is acting as your DNS:
   nameserver 192.168.1.254
   or something like this if you are connecting directly to the Internet and using a public DNS:
   nameserver 147.11.1.11
nameserver 147.11.100.30

Setting Up DNS Server Address On Gaming Consoles

Each gaming console has a different setup routine, but if you are using a Wi-Fi connection in your home and your game console is equipped with a Wi-Fi card then the console should able to take care of the configuration by itself. The same should happen if you are connecting your console with an Ethernet cable directly to the router.

Anyhow, in some cases, your console might be expecting to receive DNS information automatically by the router, whereas the router is configured otherwise. Other times, DNS servers in the router are not working properly with your console or are too slow. In these cases, you can go to the Network Settings of your console and change the DNS Settings from automatic to manual. This should be available in all modern gaming consoles, including portable ones like the PSP.

In the Manual Settings page of your console, change the primary and secondary DNS servers to these values:

208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

These are freely available DNS servers offered by OpenDNS.

Disclaimer: Since I suppose that even the most unexperienced webmaster out there knows the answer to most technical questions addressed in this space, I would like to make it clear that most posts in this blog will be written in a way that should be easy to understand for everybody.

Simply put, an IP address (determine your current IP address now) is a number that uniquely identifies a machine connected to the Internet. Every machine connected to the internet – your desktop PC, your laptop, your mobile phone, your gaming console – is assigned a unique IP Address. Think about an IP address like a phone number. An IP address, like your unique phone number, is necessary to let you send and receive data when connected to the Internet. The IP address identifies you, and most servers you visit on the Internet will keep track of your actions by registering your IP address.

Often, many machines share the same public IP address. This happens, for example, when you have a Wi-Fi router in your house or in your office and every machine in the house connects to it. In most cases, all machines connected to the Internet through this router will share the same public IP address – since only the router is directly connected to the Internet, whereas the other machines are first connecting to the router, which then routes the traffic to and from the Internet.

Some IP addresses are reserved for use into private networks – in the example above, the private network would be the connection between your router and all the machines into your house. Since these IPs are used only inside a private network to let a bunch of machines talk to each other, they do not need to be globally unique, like public IP addresses.

I hope this brief post is clear enough. Questions for future features, always written in this plain language, are welcome. In the next feature, we will talk about anonymity on the Internet.

Welcome to IPDrake.com’s Day 1!

This website offers a simple tool to check your current IP address and find out other information about your system. It can be used by webmasters testing their websites, or simple users trying to check how web servers “see” you when visiting their pages. For the most technical users, the system also attempts to determine your real IP and if you are connecting through a proxy server.

Indeed, there is plenty to do to make our tool better. Updates coming soon include:

• Check information about any IP
• Check website’s IP and other information
• iPhone version
• Mobile version (even though the current website should already work fairly well on most platforms)

Small Google Ads will also appear on the website soon, even though our aim is usability, so we will try to keep them as unobtrusive as possible. Your feedback is welcome and encouraged. Let’s make this simple tool something really useful! If you want to help, just spread this link or send us your tips at development (at) ipdrake.com.