The Tool page allows you to interactively run 3 common network utilites from the web interface: ping, traceroute and host (i.e., dns lookup).
Send ICMP ECHO_REQUEST packets to network hosts. This useful to see if a host is available. Type a DNS name or IP address and click on the 'Go' button (or type 'Enter'). After a short delay you should see a display similar to this:
| PING www.yahoo.akadns.net (64.58.76.222) from 10.0.1.2 : 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from w1.dcx.yahoo.com (64.58.76.222): icmp_seq=0 ttl=240 time=15.495 msec 64 bytes from w1.dcx.yahoo.com (64.58.76.222): icmp_seq=1 ttl=240 time=9.888 msec 64 bytes from w1.dcx.yahoo.com (64.58.76.222): icmp_seq=2 ttl=240 time=9.888 msec 64 bytes from w1.dcx.yahoo.com (64.58.76.222): icmp_seq=3 ttl=240 time=9.888 msec 64 bytes from w1.dcx.yahoo.com (64.58.76.222): icmp_seq=4 ttl=240 time=9.888 msec 64 bytes from w1.dcx.yahoo.com (64.58.76.222): icmp_seq=5 ttl=240 time=9.888 msec 64 bytes from w1.dcx.yahoo.com (64.58.76.222): icmp_seq=6 ttl=240 time=9.958 msec 64 bytes from w1.dcx.yahoo.com (64.58.76.222): icmp_seq=7 ttl=240 time=19.887 msec 64 bytes from w1.dcx.yahoo.com (64.58.76.222): icmp_seq=8 ttl=240 time=29.873 msec 64 bytes from w1.dcx.yahoo.com (64.58.76.222): icmp_seq=9 ttl=240 time=9.938 msec --- www.yahoo.akadns.net ping statistics --- 10 packets transmitted, 10 packets received, 0% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max/mdev = 9.888/13.459/29.873/6.350 ms |
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The Internet is a large and complex aggregation of network hardware, connected together by gateways. Tracking the route one's packets follow (or finding the miscreant gateway that's discarding your packets) can be difficult. Traceroute utilizes the IP protocol `time to live' field and attempts to elicit an ICMP TIME_EXCEEDED response from each gateway along the path to some host. Type a DNS name or IP address and click on the 'Go' button (or type 'Enter'). After a short delay you should see a display similar to this:
| 1 taylor (128.0.0.1) 1.446 ms 0.287 ms 0.281 ms 2 firewall1 (192.168.1.1) 11.625 ms 2.688 ms 2.650 ms 3 10.75.195.1 (10.75.195.1) 12.893 ms 11.743 ms 13.120 ms 4 * * * 5 * * * 6 * * * 7 68.48.0.162 (68.48.0.162) 16.867 ms 18.204 ms 15.362 ms 8 12.126.174.73 (12.126.174.73) 12.935 ms 13.452 ms 16.328 ms 9 gbr6-p30.wswdc.ip.att.net (12.123.9.70) 18.697 ms 19.412 ms 14.642 ms 10 12.122.11.173 (12.122.11.173) 18.800 ms 14.297 ms 53.238 ms 11 ggr1-p340.wswdc.ip.att.net (12.122.11.234) 13.370 ms 12.106 ms 13.178 ms 12 ibr01-p5-0.stng01.exodus.net (216.32.173.185) 18.976 ms 14.536 ms 17.988 ms 13 dcr04-g6-0.stng01.exodus.net (216.33.99.84) 37.944 ms 14.950 ms 13.742 ms 14 csr22-ve241.stng01.exodus.net (216.33.98.19) 81.373 ms 16.498 ms 18.694 ms 15 216.35.210.126 (216.35.210.126) 22.241 ms 46.161 ms 15.095 ms 16 www10.dcx.yahoo.com (64.58.76.179) 16.572 ms 13.827 ms 14.250 ms |
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Lookup the IP addresses associated with a DNS name. Type a DNS name or IP address and click on the 'Go' button (or type 'Enter'). After a short delay you should see a display similar to this:
| www.yahoo.com. is an alias for www.yahoo.akadns.net. www.yahoo.akadns.net. has address 64.58.76.176 www.yahoo.akadns.net. has address 64.58.76.179 www.yahoo.akadns.net. has address 64.58.76.177 www.yahoo.akadns.net. has address 64.58.76.227 www.yahoo.akadns.net. has address 64.58.76.228 www.yahoo.akadns.net. has address 64.58.76.223 www.yahoo.akadns.net. has address 64.58.76.222 www.yahoo.akadns.net. has address 64.58.76.224 www.yahoo.akadns.net. has address 64.58.76.178 www.yahoo.akadns.net. has address 64.58.76.225 www.yahoo.akadns.net. has address 64.58.76.229 |
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