Ping IP address, tracert, and pathping are Windows utilities that help you in troubleshooting network connectivity problem
In computer networks, network connectivity problems are common issues that are frequently occur. Troubleshooting and resolution of the problems are the tasks of the network owners or the network administrators in business or enterprise networks. Ping IP address is the first command to use in troubleshooting communication problems on a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) network.
Besides ping IP address, tracert and pathping are helpful Windows utilities you can use for troubleshooting purposes. How can you use them? The figure below is a simple networking diagram that helps you in using the utilities. To use ping, you open a command line window and type ping followed by either the IP address or the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the host for which you want to test network connectivity.
Before you can run the ping command successfully you need to verify that TCP/IP is installed and running by pinging the local loopback address using ping 127.0.0.1 or ping localhost command. If you receive a successful response, means that the TCP/IP configuration of the computer is Ok. For example from PC-A (hostname=TOWER) you can run a loopback test (ping localhost) as shown below:
Pinging TOWER [127.0.0.1] with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128 Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128 Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128 Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128 Ping statistics for 127.0.0.1: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss), Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0msThe ping test was successful with 0% packet loss that means the TCP/IP is configured correctly. Now you need to run a ping test to the default gateway (192.168.1.1) and see if the ping is successful. In home network environment, the default gateway is the IP address of the wireless router you use. In business network, the default gateway is generally the E0 interface of the business router or the firewall.
When the ping IP address of the default gateway is successful, then you can make a ping test to the remote host for example yahoo.com. If the DNS configuration is correct, you should receive a successful response from yahoo server. In home network to share the broadband internet connection, the DNS configuration (and the IP address of the PC) is based on the DHCP configuration of the modem-router device. The computers on the network receive the IP address configuration automatically from the DHCP services. If you cannot ping the names (for example yahoo.com) but you can ping the IP address successfully, then you have a name resolution problem – DNS was not configured correctly.
Tracert command
Besides the ping IP address command, on Microsoft Windows platforms, tracert command is a utility used for troubleshooting communication on routed Internet Protocol (IP) networks such as the Internet. The corresponding utility on UNIX platforms is known as traceroute.
Tracert (or traceroute) is used to “trace the route” across an IP internetwork from a local host to a remote one. Tracert uses Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) echo packets similar to the way ping operates. When an attempt is made to use tracert to trace the route to a remote IP host, a series of ICMP echo packets are assigned a steadily increasing Time to Live (TTL) to test network connectivity with routers and IP hosts that are farther away along the route. This continues until either connectivity fails or the target host is finally contacted and successfully responds.
For example, from PC-A you can run a tracert command to trace the route to yahoo.com server with a command tracert yahoo.com.
Tracing route to yahoo.com [69.147.125.65] over a maximum of 30 hops: 0 TOWER [192.168.1.5] 1 192.168.1.1 2 1.subnet125-164-144.speedy.telkom.net.id [125.164.144.1] 3 125.160.1.25 4 225.subnet118-98-12.astinet.telkom.net.id [118.98.12.225] 5 225.subnet118-98-12.astinet.telkom.net.id [118.98.12.225] 6 sin1-telkom-1.sin.seabone.net [213.144.176.85] 7 loa1-sin1-racc3.loa.seabone.net [89.221.35.156] 8 pao2-loa1-racc2.loa.seabone.net [89.221.35.147] 9 PAT1.pao.yahoo.com [198.32.176.135] 10 as-1.pat2.dax.yahoo.com [216.115.101.131] 11 * as-0.pat2.dce.yahoo.com [216.115.96.20] 12 ae1-p141.msr1.re1.yahoo.com [216.115.108.19] 13 te-9-4.bas-a1.re1.yahoo.com [66.196.112.207] 14 ir1.fp.vip.re1.yahoo.com [69.147.125.65]You can trace the IP address hop by hop of the routers until the final destination of yahoo.com server is found. If you ever fail in ping yahoo.com, you can trace where the fail point of the router is. In multi-site environments, tracert is very essential tool in troubleshooting the inter-site communication problems.
Pathping command
Pathping is a utility that combines features of ping and tracert commands. Pathping is a TCP/IP troubleshooting tool that was introduced in Microsoft Windows 2000 and above. You can use pathping to discover the route to a remote host such as tracert (or the UNIX traceroute). It then pings the remote host for a period of time and collects statistics and reports them.
See also:
- Types WAN technologies – the available WAN services
- The local area network topologies – general LAN topology
- Understanding common router problems
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