Chapter 10

1.     Issue a Ipconfig command at the command prompt.  Try some of the popular switches such as /all and /?.  Capture a screen shot and write a paragraph about how you would use the command to troubleshoot a problem.  Put this information in your blog.

You can use Ipconfig to check your IP addressing.  Ipconfig /? Will show you all the commands and a brief description of what they do.  Use Ipconfig /all to list information such as IPv4 and IPv6 address, subnet mask, default gateway, subnet mask, MAC address, etc.  If you are using DHCP, you can use ipconfig /renew to obtain a new IP address.

Sample of ipconfig /all

2.     Issue a Netstat command at the command prompt.  Try some of the popular switches such as - p and -a.  Capture a screen shot and write a paragraph about how you would use the command to troubleshoot a problem.  Put this information in your blog.

Using Netstat is great for troubleshooting if you are having problems with latency (lag).  It can give you information about current TCP/IP connections such as what port a connection is on and if it is active or just listening.  You can also get statistics about protocol types such as sent and received.

3.     Issue a Nbtstat command at the command prompt. Try some of the popular switches such as - r and -a.  Capture a screen shot and write a paragraph about how you would use the command to troubleshoot a problem.  Put this information in your blog.

Nbstat is pretty limited due to the fact that it can only be used on a machine with a Windows based OS and that NetBIOS needs to be running over TCP/IP to get the full benifit.  It can do some nice diagnostic work.  Nbstat -a Joe will give you the IP address of the machine named Joe on your network.  Nbstat -A 192.168.15.1 will give you the name of the machine on your network that has that IP address.  If you dont have a Windows system, this command will do you no good.

4.     Issue a Hostname command.

 Using the hostname command by itself will return the host name of the current client.  If you wanted to rename a client to JPBigBoat, you would type hostname JPBigBoat.

5.     Use the Nslookup command to view the IP address of at least three domain names. Capture a screen shot and list the class of IP address for each domain.  Put this information in your blog.

 google.com is a Class A IP

hotmail.com is a Class A IP

ibm.com is a Class B IP

6.     Issue a Tracert command at home. Capture a screen shot and write a paragraph about how you would use the command to troubleshoot a problem.  Put this information in your blog.

By using Traceroute you can follow the path of data one node at a time.  What tracert does is send a few UDP datagrams to an IP address with a TTL of 1.  When these datagrams expire, they are sent back to the source.  At that point, tracert issues another set of datagrams to the same IP address but with a TTL of 2.  This is repeated until the datagrams reach the destination IP, hit a firewall, a node that is down or does not accept ICMP transmissions.  If one of the latter happen, you may have found your problem.