Useful Commands

Ping

Ping is used to test the ability of one network host to communicate with another. Simply enter the Ping command, followed by the name or the IP address of the destination host.

NetStat

If you are experiencing problems with network communications, then network statistics can sometimes help point you toward the root cause of the problem. That's where the aptly named NetStat command comes into play. This command has a number of different functions, but the most useful of these is to display network summary information for the device. To see this type of summary information, just type NetStat -e.

Hostname

Fast and easy way of verifying a computer's name,

Tracert

Tracert sends a series of ICMP echo requests, and the request's TTL increased by 1 each time. This allows the utility to display the routers through which packets are passing to be identified. When possible, Windows displays the duration and IP address or fully qualified domain name of each hop.

IpConfig

IPConfig command will display basic IP address configuration information for the device.

If you would like to see more detailed information, then type IPConfig /all. Doing so causes Windows to display IP address configuration that is much more verbose. This is also the command that you will have to use if you want to see which DNS server the Windows device is configured to use.

The IPConfig command can do much more than just display IP address configuration information. It also contains options that can help you to troubleshoot problems related to DNS and DHCP. For example, entering the IPConfig /FlushDNS command purges the contents of the computer's DNS resolver cache.

PathPing

Combines the best aspects of Tracert and Ping.

Entering the PathPing command followed by a host name initiates what looks like a somewhat standard Tracert process. Once this process completes, however, the tool takes 300 seconds (five minutes) to gather statistics, and then reports latency and packet loss statistics that are more detailed than those provided by Ping or Tracert.