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How to extract IP/DNS address of your broker's MT4 server

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How to extract IP/DNS address of your broker's MT4 server

Why you need your broker’s server IP

Knowing the actual IP address of your broker’s trading server is useful in several situations:

  • Latency testing — Run a ping test to measure the round-trip time between your VPS and the broker server.
  • Firewall rules — If you want to lock down your VPS firewall to only allow connections to specific IPs.
  • Choosing the right VPS location — Knowing where your broker’s server is hosted helps you pick the FXVPS datacenter with the lowest latency (London LD4, New York NY4, Tokyo TY3, or Hong Kong HK1).

📊 Key Stat: Major forex brokers cluster in a handful of Equinix datacenters (LD4 London, NY4 New York, TY3 Tokyo). A VPS in the same facility achieves sub-millisecond latency because data travels meters, not continents.

There are three reliable ways to find this information.

Method 1: MT4 data folder and .srv files

This is the most reliable method because it reads the server configuration directly from MetaTrader’s files.

  1. Open your MetaTrader 4 terminal.
  2. Go to File > Open Data Folder. This opens a Windows Explorer window pointing to your MT4 data directory.
  3. Navigate into the config folder.
  4. Inside the config folder, you will see subfolders named after broker servers — for example, ICMarketsSC-Demo01 or Pepperstone-Edge01.
  5. Open the folder that matches the server you are connected to.
  6. Inside you will find one or more .srv files. Right-click the .srv file and select Open with > Notepad. If Windows asks how to open the file, choose Notepad from the list.
  7. The file contents are partially binary, but you will see readable IP addresses and hostnames in the text. Look for entries that look like 192.168.x.x or broker-server.company.com followed by a port number.

💡 Tip: You can find your broker’s server IP by checking the MT4/MT5 server list (File > Open an Account) or by running a ping test against the server hostname shown in the platform’s connection settings.

Note: The .srv file format is not plain text, so the file will contain some unreadable characters mixed in with the IP addresses. Focus on the readable portions — the IP addresses will be clearly visible.

Method 2: MT4 Journal tab

The Journal tab in MetaTrader logs every connection attempt and shows the server IP address in real time.

  1. Open MetaTrader 4.
  2. Go to View > Terminal (or press Ctrl+T) to open the Terminal panel at the bottom.
  3. Click the Journal tab.
  4. Look for log entries that say something like:
'xxxxx': connecting to broker-server.company.com:443 (185.xxx.xxx.xxx:443)

The IP address in parentheses is your broker’s actual server IP. The number after the colon is the port.

Tip: If you do not see a connection entry, disconnect and reconnect to your broker account. Go to File > Login to Trade Account, enter your credentials, and click Login. The Journal tab will immediately show the new connection with the resolved IP.

Method 3: Using ping or nslookup from Command Prompt

If you know the hostname of your broker’s server (visible in the MT4 login dialog or the Journal tab), you can resolve it to an IP address using Windows command-line tools.

💡 Tip: Save your VPS connection as an .rdp file on your desktop for one-click access. Include the port number so you never have to type it manually.

  1. Open Command Prompt on your VPS: press Win + R, type cmd, and press Enter.
  2. Type the following command, replacing the hostname with your broker’s server name:
nslookup broker-server.company.com
  1. The output will show one or more IP addresses under “Addresses” — these are the server IPs your broker uses.

Alternatively, use ping:

ping broker-server.company.com

This will both resolve the hostname and show you the latency to that server. Look at the line that says Reply from 185.xxx.xxx.xxx: bytes=32 time=Xms — the IP is the broker server and the time value is your latency.

How to use the IP for latency testing

Once you have the broker’s IP address, you can measure your connection quality directly from your FXVPS:

ping -n 20 185.xxx.xxx.xxx

This sends 20 ping packets and shows you the minimum, maximum, and average round-trip time. For forex trading, you want to see consistent results under 5ms. With FXVPS, latency to supported brokers can be as low as 0.38ms because our servers sit in the same Tier-1 datacenters (Equinix LD4, NY4, TY3, HK1) where many brokers colocate their trading infrastructure.

Check pre-measured broker latencies

Rather than testing manually, you can check our broker latency page which lists pre-measured latencies for 195+ brokers from each FXVPS datacenter. This helps you choose the optimal VPS location before you even sign up.

For more setup guides, see how to access your VPS using RDP or how to check if your VPS is online with ping.