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Asked: 2026-05-18T05:29:22+00:00

I have a very basic Linux server running on an IP camera (Busybox). I’d

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I have a very basic Linux server running on an IP camera (Busybox). I’d like to get the public IP of that camera, which is located behind a router.
It has no “wget” nor “traceroute”, and “ping” is just answering “alive” or “not alive”…

The only one available is a basic “netcat” :

nc
BusyBox v1.1.3 (2009.12.07-16:16+0000) multi-call binary
Usage: nc [OPTIONS] [IP] [port]
Netcat opens a pipe to IP:port
Options:
        -l              listen mode, for inbound connects
        -p PORT         local port number
        -i SECS         delay interval for lines sent
        -w SECS         timeout for connects and final net reads
        -4              Use IPv4 (default)
        -6              Use IPv6
        -D DSCP         set IP DSCP field
        -P PRIO         set VLAN user-priority

Provided my ISP allows outgoing HTTP, is it possible to use netcat in order to get the public IP response from a site like http://www.obtainip.com or similar ?

GREAT and many thanks to both of you guys as I did not feel comfortable with nc at all.

Here are the 2 working ways :

echo "GET /automation/n09230945.asp HTTP/1.0" > http_req2.txt
echo "Host: www.whatismyip.com" >> http_req2.txt
echo "" >> http_req2.txt
echo "" >> http_req2.txt
IP2=$(cat http_req2.txt | nc www.whatismyip.com 80 | tail -n 1)
echo $IP2
YEAH !

and more strange but… it also works :

echo "GET / HTTP/1.0" > http_request.txt
echo "Host: www.whatismyip.com" >> http_request.txt
echo "User-Agent: netcat" >> http_request.txt
echo "Referer: http://www.whatismyip.com/" >> http_request.txt
echo "" >> http_request.txt
echo "" >> http_request.txt
IP=$(cat http_request.txt | nc www.whatismyipaddress.com 80 | tail -n 1)
echo $IP
YEAH again!

EDIT
Of course, this can be scripted better like suggested :

echo -e "GET /automation/n09230945.asp HTTP/1.0\n"Host: www.whatismyip.com\n\n" | nc www.whatismyipaddress.com 80 | tail -n 1
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    create a file called ‘script’

    put this in the contents

    GET /automation/n09230945.asp HTTP/1.0
Host: www.whatismyip.com

    Make sure there are 2 empty linefeeds on the bottom (this editor wont show them)

    then run

    cat script | nc www.whatismyip.com 80 | tail -1

    There is your ip… you can put it in a variable like

    IP=`cat script | nc www.whatismyip.com 80 | tail -1`
echo $IP

    This will return just the ip address, no fuss

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