A gateway is a node that allows you to gain entrance into a network and vice versa. On the Internet the node which is the stopping point can be a gateway or a host node. A computer that controls the traffic your network or your ISP (Internet Service Provider) receives is a node. In most homes a gateway is the device provided by the Internet Service Provider that connects users to the internet. We can find the gateway IP address on Windows, Linux and Mac as below. On Windows : Click Start -> Run -> Type cmd to launch command prompt. In command prompt type : route PRINT The output will have a list of gateway addresses for the particular system. On Lunux : Start Terminal and Run , $ route -n This will display the routing table as below Kernel IP routing table Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface 192.168.31.0 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0 U G 0 0 0 eth0 127.0.0.0 0.0.0.0