In this post, I am going to explain what are the network diagnostic commands need for in order to troubleshoot the website or networking issues for developers and architects. I am not going to explain all the commands which Network Engineers use.
Now, I am think of the following commands, tools…etc.
Before going into the details of each command, I would like to mention
How Internet Works?
- In high level, when we type www.microsoft.com on browser, browser sends the request to DNS (Domain Name Server) to ask for the IP address of the website. This browser request goes via many DNS including root DNS and finally to get the IP address of the website which we are requested.
- Once browser get the IP address of the website, browser sends request to the IP address to get the content of the website.
Commands Explanation:
Please click start->and type command on the windows search box and open the command prompt to verify the following commands. Please note that some of the commands are may not work for you due to path issue or utility for that command is not installed on your machine. Please check with your Network Engineer if it’s not working. The command prompt window should be similar like the below picture.
- Ipconfig: To display the network settings currently assigned to any or all network adapters in the machine. This command is used to verify/find an IP address, network connection as well as to verify your network settings. Please type ipcong/? If you need to know more about the command and other options.
For example, the result of ipconfig for my machine
2. nslookup: To look up an IP address of a domain or host on a network. Please type nslookup/? To know more about how to use them.
For example, nslookup results for www.microsoft.com from my machine
3. Tracert: Used to visually see a network packet being sent and received and the amount of hops required for that packet to get to its destination. It will also show you that your request going to via which networks and firewalls with details from source to destination.
For example, type tracert google.com. This is the tracert for google.com from my machine.
4. Ping: Used to check for network errors. Generally, if unable to connect webs site or any host then you can use ping command to verify and it’s also give you he IP address of the site.
For example, When I type, ping www.facebook.com and I am seeing the below result.
5. netstat: Allow you to view the statistics of the network such as active TCP connections, ports on which the computer is listening…etc.
For example, netstat results for my machine is given below.
6. pathping: Its similar to the tracert command, pathping command provides information about network latency and network loss at intermediate hops between a source and destination. Pathping sends multiple echo request messages to each router between a source and destination over a period of time and then computes results based on the packets returned from each router.
For example, pathping results for www.amazon.com from my machine.
7. telnet: Telnet is software utility that allows users to remotely access another computer such as a server, network device, or other computer. We can verify that if we cannot connect to any machine with particular port and this will help us to troubleshoot the problem and connectivity issue.
8. ftp: Short name for File Transfer Protocol. Used to receive and send the files from FTP server
Tools:
1. Fiddler: Fiddler is the web debugging tool and its downloaded from http://www.fiddler2.com. Please download and play around it to know more about the fiddler. Fiddler will show lot of information such HTTP headesr, requests…etc. & also used for verifying the performance of the web site.
For example, traffic information for www.yahoo.com from my machine.
WireShark: WireSharek is a network packet analyser tool and it’s downloaded from wireshark.org. Please download and try it. Please share your experience about this tool if you like it.
Others:
Hosts file: Hosts file is used to map hostname to IP address. The location of the host file is C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc. The contents of the host files similar like below.
127.0.0.1 localhost
x.y.z.z1 mysite.com
Usability:
- Used to test for the DNS IP address changes when diverting traffic to specific IP address.
- Divert any website traffic to specific IP address on your machine.
If you would to know more about the networking commands please refer the following sites
Note: There are many numbers of tools/info available for debug/trace the website/network traffic. If your find the good one and useful for others please share with us and also share with me at Jayachandran.NET@hotmail.com.
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