How to Find Your Default Gateway

How to Find Your Default Gateway

If you are using a Windows-based computer, you simply need to access a Command Prompt to find out what the Default Gateway is. To access a Command Prompt, click on the “Start” menu button and search for “CMD”. Click to open.

If you are having a difficult time locating the Command Prompt using the start menu you can press the “Windows Key” on your keyboard while also pressing the “R” key. This will bring up the Run Menu. Now you can simply type “CMD” and click “OK”.

After opening the Command Prompt you should see a small black window like the one below.

In the Command Prompt window, type “ipconfig” and press “Enter/Return” on your keyboard. You will see a lot of information generated in this window. If you scroll up you should see “Default Gateway” with the device’s IP address listed to the right of it.

For Mac OSX 10.x users:

Step 1: First, click the Apple icon in the top left corner. From this menu, click “System Preferences”.
Step 2: Next, click “Network”.

Your default gateway will appear next to “Router”. See image below.

Note: An IP Address is the internal address of the computer you are on.

For Linux users:

Open a terminal session and use the command: ip route | grep default

The result should look something similar to this:

default via 192.168.0.1 dev wlp58s0 proto dhcp metric 600

Once you have located the Default Gateway IP address on your Operating System of choice, open any web browser and input the IP address into the Address Bar and press “Enter/Return” on your keyboard.

A box should appear prompting you to enter the router’s username and password. This information can sometimes be found on your router, or in your information guide.

If you can’t find it on either, you can search the Internet by typing your router’s make and model and “Default Administrator Password” into any search engine. This will only work if you have not changed the password on your router. If you have changed the default password and forget it, you will need to reset your router.