Many people inquire about whether the IP is native before purchasing a VPS. However, there is no official and accurate definition of a native IP.
So what is a native IP? How do we determine if an IP is native? What should we do if the IP geolocation is inconsistent?
Principles of a native IP
Do not blindly trust native IPs. Native IPs are mostly provided by local suppliers. Compared to non-native IP cloud servers from international giants, they often have functional limitations and are more expensive.
For example, they may not support hourly billing or allow instant destruction and refund. The quality of products from local suppliers can also vary.
There is no difference in the geographical location of servers between native and non-native IPs. The IP geolocation is determined by the location of the cloud server.
There is no official query criterion for native IPs. It usually depends on the third-party application company that the cloud server is integrated with, such as TikTok, Facebook, Netflix, etc.
The rules used by these companies to determine native IPs are unknown. Therefore, the most reliable method is to conduct actual tests.
Based on the above, let’s define a native IP as an IP address where the country of the IP’s ISP matches the geographical location of the server.
The discussion about native IPs in this article is based on this definition.
For example, Digital Ocean provides cloud servers in India, but the geographical location of the servers is in India while the ISP is Digital Ocean, an American company. Therefore, Digital Ocean’s cloud servers in India are not native IPs.
How to determine the geographical location of a server based on an IP address?
Please note that some IP address databases may not be updated in a timely manner, so the geolocation information obtained from them can be incorrect.
Therefore, it is important not to blindly follow the results from a single IP geolocation lookup website.
It is recommended to use multiple authoritative IP geolocation lookup websites for comprehensive results. Here are two recommended IP geolocation lookup websites:
How to determine if an IP is native?
Visit https://db-ip.com/ and enter the IP address you want to query in the search bar at the top.
On the query result page, click on the ASN (Autonomous System Number) number. The ASN is a unique number assigned to each large network.
On the ASN page, you can see the country where the ISP is located. If the country matches the geographical location of the server, then it is a native IP.
How to change DNS to match the IP geolocation?
To modify DNS settings, refer to the article I wrote previously: “30 seconds guide on how to modify the DNS server settings of a VPS hosting“
Other common questions about IP addresses
Can I specify a specific range of IP addresses?
Each time a cloud server is provisioned, its IP address is randomly assigned from the IP address pool of the cloud server provider.
The provider’s IP address pool may consist of one or multiple IP address ranges, which can be subject to changes at any time. Therefore, it is not possible to specify the allocation of a specific IP address range.
The provider will not fulfill special requests from individual customers to change the IP address of a specific cloud server.
Users can change their IP address by methods such as destroying and recreating the server, changing the main IP address, or adding additional IP addresses.
However, not all regions support these operations. Please refer to the “Test IP and Feature Comparison” page for each country or city’s cloud servers.
Furthermore, there is no concept of “new” or “old” IP addresses. IP addresses are recycled and reused globally.
In fact, IPv4 addresses were exhausted as early as 2012 and have been fully allocated to the five regional Internet registries. The IP addresses we currently use have been previously used by others.
I need to ensure that the country where the DNS is located matches the IP geolocation.
You can try to solve this by modifying the DNS settings on the client and server side. Specific methods can be found by searching for relevant help articles on Google.
Does a cloud server broadcast its IP? Is broadcasting IP bad?
Broadcasting IP is a technical means by which cloud server providers allocate their IP address ranges to the location where the servers are located. Therefore, the country of the ISP for a broadcasting IP may not match the geographical location of the server.
For example, a Hong Kong-based ISP may broadcast its IP address range to Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, and other locations.
Broadcasting IP offers an affordable solution to achieve network experience consistent with native IPs. There is no inherent good or bad in broadcasting IP compared to native IP. The choice depends on the specific requirements and use cases of users.
