Help:Tools

Description

The Tool page allows you to interactively run 3 common network utilites from the web interface: ping, traceroute and host (i.e., dns lookup).

Ping

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

Traceroute

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

DNS Lookup

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