Lesson 3 of 715 minutesHands-on

Meet your router: log in and see what’s connected

Your router is the busiest device in your home, and most people never look inside it. It has its own settings pages, and they show you things nothing else will: every device on your network, the addresses it has handed out, and the public address your provider gave you. In this lesson you’ll log in and read them.

In this lesson

Open your router’s settings page and log in
See every device connected to your network, and spot one you don’t recognise
Find your router’s public address and check whether your provider shares it with other customers

You’ll need: a computer or phone on your home network, and the router address you wrote down in Lesson 2 (the “Default Gateway” or “Router”). Only do this on a router that’s yours, or that you have permission to manage.

What your router actually does

The box your provider gave you usually does several jobs at once. In Router vs Modem we separate them properly, but for this lesson three matter:

It hands out addresses. When a device joins your Wi-Fi, it asks “can I have an address?” and the router gives it a private one from its list. This service is called DHCP.
It shares one public address. Every device’s traffic goes out under the router’s public address, and the router passes each reply back to the device that asked. That’s the NAT you met in Lesson 2.
It keeps a record of both. The router knows exactly which devices are connected and which address each one has, and it will show you.

How a device gets its address

The DHCP conversation is four short messages, and it happens every time a device joins the network:

DiscoverThe device calls out: “is there a router here?”
OfferThe router replies: “you can have 192.168.1.23”
RequestThe device: “yes please, I’ll take it”
AcknowledgeThe router: “it’s yours for the next few hours”

That last part matters: the address is a lease, not a gift. When the lease runs out, the device asks again, and it usually gets the same address back. If the router never answers at all, the device gives itself a 169.254 address, which is the warning sign you learned about in Lesson 2.

Try it yourself · part 1

Open your router’s settings page

Open a new browser tab and type your router’s address into the address bar, exactly as you wrote it down, for example 192.168.1.1. Press Enter.
You may see a warning such as “Not secure” or “Your connection is not private”. For your own router, that’s normal: many routers use plain, unencrypted pages or a certificate the browser doesn’t recognise. Continue to the page.
A login page appears. The username and password are usually printed on a sticker on the back or bottom of the router, often labelled “Admin”, “Router login” or “Web access”. This is not the same as your Wi-Fi password, although some providers use one sticker for both.
Log in. You’re now looking at the router’s own settings pages.

Only accept that warning here. A router at a private address on your own network is a special case. If a real website, a bank or a shop, ever gives you a “not secure” or certificate warning, don’t continue.

No login page? Mesh systems and some providers’ routers are managed through a phone app instead of a web page. Everything in this lesson is in the app too, usually under Devices and Network or Internet.

If the default password still works, anyone who gets onto your network can log in just as easily. Changing it is the first item in our home network checklist. For now, just look around: don’t change any settings you don’t understand. If you do change something, take a photo of the screen first so you can put it back.

Every router maker lays out its pages differently, so the menu names below won’t match yours word for word. Look for something close to them.

Try it yourself · part 2

See everything that’s connected

Find the list of devices. It’s usually called something like Connected devices, Attached devices, Device list, Client list or DHCP clients.
For each device you’ll normally see a name, its private address and a MAC address: a hardware ID that looks like 3c:22:fb:91:5e:07.
Count them, and try to match each one to a real device in your home: phones, laptops, the TV, a games console, smart speakers, the printer.
Find the device you’re using right now. Its address should match the one you found in Lesson 2.

Most homes have more devices connected than people expect. If one has no name or a strange one, paste its MAC address into our MAC address lookup to see which company made its network chip.

Don’t panic about an odd-looking device. Modern phones and laptops often use a random MAC address for each Wi-Fi network, for privacy, so they show up without a maker’s name. The MAC lookup tells you when an address is one of these. A device you truly can’t account for is a good reason to change your Wi-Fi password.

Try it yourself · part 3

Find your router’s public address

Find the router’s status page: look for Status, Internet, WAN or Overview. “WAN” stands for wide area network: the internet side of the router.
Note the IP address shown for the internet or WAN connection.
Turn off any VPN for a moment, then open our IP address checker and compare the two.

What the comparison tells you

Router’s internet address	What it means
Same as the checker	Your router has its own public address. Everything is as simple as it gets.
Starts 100.64 to 100.127	Your provider shares one public address between many customers. This is CGNAT. Browsing works normally, but hosting anything at home, like a game server or remote camera access, usually won’t.
Starts 192.168, 10 or 172.16 to 172.31	Your router is plugged into another router, often your provider’s box. This is called double NAT. Look at the first box’s status page to find the real public address.

Try it yourself · part 4

See where the addresses come from

Find the DHCP settings, usually under LAN, Local network or DHCP server.
Look for the address range or pool, something like 192.168.1.100 to 192.168.1.199. Every device’s address comes from that range.
Look for the lease time: how long a device keeps its address before asking again. A day is common.

Some routers also let you reserve an address for one device, so it always gets the same one. That’s useful for a printer or a home server, and it’s how people avoid “the printer moved again”.

While you’re in there

You now know how to reach the pages that control your whole network. Course 4 goes through securing them properly, but three things are worth a glance today:

The admin password. If it’s still the one on the sticker and the sticker is visible to visitors, change it.
Firmware updates. Look for Firmware, Update or System. A router that hasn’t been updated in years may have known security holes.
Remote management. If there’s an option to manage the router “from the internet” and you don’t use it, it should be off.

The full list, with the reasons behind each item, is in How to Secure Your Home Network.

Key takeaways

Your router has its own settings pages at its private address, usually something like 192.168.1.1.
It hands out private addresses with DHCP, as leases that expire and get renewed.
Its device list shows everything on your network, with each device’s address and MAC address.
Comparing the router’s internet address with the IP checker shows whether you have your own public address, a shared one (CGNAT) or two routers in a row.
The admin login controls your whole network. Don’t leave it on the default.

Check yourself

Three questions. Pick one answer each and you’ll see why.

1. You type 192.168.1.1 to reach your own router, and the browser says “Not secure”. What’s the most likely explanation?

2. Your router’s status page shows an internet address of 100.72.14.9, but the IP checker shows 203.0.113.7. What does that mean?

3. What does DHCP do?

Want the background in more depth? Read Router vs Modem, the full explainer on what each box does.