MacOS public IP address different to other network devices

Question

Level 1

4 points

MacOS public IP address different to other network devices

Hi guys,

I have the following problem: for some reason the public IP address of my MacBook is different from all other devices in my network. In detail this means:

- public IP of the MacBook: 172.xxx.xxx.xxx

- public IP of the iPhone: 93.xxx.xxx.xxx

- public IP of the iPad: 93.xxx.xxx.xxx

- public IP of the Playstation: 93.xxx.xxx.xxx

I suspect that here on the macOS side the IP address is anonymized somehow. Is there any way to disable this anonymization? My problem is that I have partial access to various servers only via IP sharing. But if the address of the MacBook is always different, it becomes difficult.

Thanks for your help.

MacBook Pro 14″

Posted on May 15, 2023 1:59 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Barney-15E

Level 10

123,494 points

May 15, 2023 4:44 AM in response to DooDafiit

Is it iCloud private relay?

About iCloud Private Relay - Apple Support

Reply

Answer 2

May 15, 2023 2:51 AM in response to DooDafiit

How are you determining the "public IP" of the devices?

How are your devices connected to the internet? A home router? Is the mac connected via Wifi, or Ethernet?

Is it set to use DHCP?

In System Settings->Network, select the appropriate service (Wifi or Ethernet) and click Details...

What do you see? Does the IP address of your Router also start with the same 172 as your mac?

For what it's worth, when connecting via a home router you should normally get an IP starting with either 192, or 10, and they'd be different from the external IP of your router, since these are in the private range (192.168.*.* for example).

Reply

Answer 3

May 15, 2023 3:54 AM in response to DooDafiit

FWIW: I am using my mac with my iPhone personal hotspot at the moment (so the iPhone is basically acting as the router for my mac).

I just tried the whatismyipaddress site with the mac and with the iPhone, and it gave me completely different addresses too.

Reply

Answer 4

DooDafiit Author

Level 1

4 points

May 15, 2023 3:19 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Hello Luis,

thank you very much for your quick reply.

I am indeed talking about the public IP and not the internal IP of the network (e.g. determined via https://whatismyipaddress.com/).

Yes, I am connected to the router and internally everything is correct here, the subnet is configured correctly everywhere - as I said, this is exclusively about the connection to the "outside".

I know the differences between public and network IP.

There must be some anonymization running here on the part of macOS, so that the public IP of the MacBook is different from the public IP of the router.

Since you asked: I connect via WiFi and Ethernet, depending on whether the MacBook is attached to the dock or not. The router is a Fritzbox model 7940 AX, but there is nothing configured on the part of the router that could cause this behavior.

Reply