Most of us write our IP addresses the way we’ve been taught, a long time ago: 127.0.0.1, 10.0.2.1, … but that gets boring after a while, doesn’t it?

Luckily, there’s a couple of ways to write an IP address, so you can mess with coworkers, clients or use it as a security measure to bypass certain (input) filters.

Not all behaviour is equal

I first learned about the different ways of writing an IP address by this little trick.

On Linux:

$ ping 0
PING 0 (127.0.0.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.053 ms
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.037 ms

This translates the “ to 127.0.0.1. However, on a Mac:

$ ping 0
PING 0 (0.0.0.0): 56 data bytes
ping: sendto: No route to host
ping: sendto: No route to host

Here, it translates “ to a null-route 0.0.0.0.

Zeroes are optional

Just like in IPv6 addresses, some zeroes (0) are optional in the IP address.

$ ping 127.1
PING 127.1 (127.0.0.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.033 ms
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.085 ms

Note though, a computer can’t just “guess” where it needs to fill in the zeroes. Take this one for example:

$ ping 10.50.1
PING 10.50.1 (10.50.0.1): 56 data bytes
Request timeout for icmp_seq 0

It translates 10.50.1 to 10.50.0.1, adding the necessary zeroes before the last digit.

Overflowing the IP address

Here’s another neat trick. You can overflow a digit.

For instance:

$ ping 10.0.513
PING 10.0.513 (10.0.2.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 10.0.2.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=61 time=10.189 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.2.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=61 time=58.119 ms

We ping 10.0.513, which translates to 10.0.2.1. The last digit can be interpreted as 2x 256 + 1. It shifts the values to the left.

Decimal IP notation

We can use a decimal representation of our IP address.

$ ping 167772673
PING 167772673 (10.0.2.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 10.0.2.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=61 time=15.441 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.2.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=61 time=4.627 ms

This translates 167772673 to 10.0.2.1.

Hex IP notation

Well, if decimal notation worked, HEX should work too – right? Of course it does!

$ ping 0xA000201
PING 0xA000201 (10.0.2.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 10.0.2.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=61 time=7.329 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.2.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=61 time=18.350 ms&#