Ping the loopback address - type ping 127.0.0.

Successfully pinging the loopback address verifies that TCP/IP is both installed and configured correctly on the local client. If your loopback test fails, then it means IP stack is not answering. If any TCP drivers get corrupted, or if your network adapter is not functioning properly, or if any of the other service is interrupting IP , then lack of response might can occur. Open event viewer, and look for problems reported by setup or by the TCP/IP service.

Ping the local client - type ping <IP address of the local client>

Successfully pinging with the local client's IP address verifies that the client was successfully added to your network. If you cannot successfully ping the local IP address after successfully pinging the loopback address, check that the local client's IP address is a valid IP address, check the routing table, and check network adapter driver.

Ping the default gateway - type ping <IP address of the default gateway>

Successfully pinging with the default gateway of the local client verifies that you can properly communicate with the local subnet to your local host and your default gateway is also functioning properly. If you cannot successfully ping the default gateway after successfully pinging the local client, check the default gateway.

Ping the IP address of network device located on a remote network - type ping <IP address of remote host>

Successfully pinging with the IP address of the remote host verifies that the local client can communicate with the remote host through a router. if the remote host is located across a high delay link such as satellite link, try using the -w (wait) parameter to specify a longer time out period than the default time out of four seconds.

If you cannot successfully ping the remote host IP address after successfully pinging the default gateway, this indicates that there is no respond from the remote host, or if there is any network hardware problem between the source

host and the destination host. To rule out the possibility of a problem in the work hardware, ping to a different remote host on the same subnet where the first remote host is located.

Ping the host name of another host on a remote network - type ping <host name of the remote host>

Successfully pinging with the name of the remote host verifies that ping can resolve the remote host name to an IP address. If you cannot successfully ping the remote host name after successfully pinging the IP address of the remote host, the problem is with host name resolution, but not with network connectivity. When pinging the host name of the target host, ping attempts to resolve the name to an address (first through a DNS server, and next through a WINS server, if one is configured), and then attempts a local broadcast. Check TCP/IP properties to see whether the client has DNS server and WINS server addresses configured, either typed manually or assigned automatically. If DNS and WINS server addresses are configured in TCP/IP properties, and if they appear when you type ipconfig/all, then try pinging with server addresses to ascertain whether they are accessible.

On a network that uses DNS for name resolution, if the name entered is not a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN), the DNS name resolver appends the computer's domain name or name to generate the FQDN. Name resolution might fail if you do not use an FQDN for a remote name. These requests fail because the DNS name resolver appends the local domain suffix to a name that resides elsewhere in the domain hierarchy.

Details from:- http://www.tech-faq.com/ping-test.shtml

What is traceroute?

traceroute is a command which is used to trace the route of a packet through a TCP/IP network.

traceroute is a Unix command. Under Microsoft Windows, the traceroute command has been renamed `tracert`. Unix `traceroute` and Microsoft Windows `tracert` are designed to accomplish the same task, but differ in the way they display output, in the way they send test packets, and in the number of command line options they provide.

Sample `tracert` output

This is the result of tracing the network route to www.mit.edu: C:\>tracert www.mit.edu

Tracing route to www.mit.edu [18.7.22.83] over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 2 ms 4 ms 2 ms 192.168.1.1 2 * * * Request timed out. 3 10 ms 50 ms 11 ms 68.86.105.109 4 28 ms 9 ms 9 ms 68.86.103.45 5 10 ms 10 ms 11 ms 68.86.103.182 6 53 ms 29 ms 10 ms 12.124.157.53 7 53 ms 45 ms 60 ms gbr1-p40.dvmco.att.net [12.123.36.146] 8 88 ms 47 ms 36 ms gbr1-p60.la2ca.att.net [12.122.1.29] 9 72 ms 34 ms 39 ms tbr2-p013301.sffca.att.net [12.122.12.133]

10 37 ms 33 ms 79 ms 12.122.80.57 11 35 ms 35 ms 35 ms so-8-1.car3.Level3.net [209.0.227.29] 12 36 ms 44 ms 36 ms ae-1-51.bbr1.Level3.net [4.68.123.1] 13 93 ms 87 ms 83 ms so-2-0-0.mp2.Level3.net [64.159.4.181] 14 91 ms 84 ms 115 ms ge-1-1-55.car2.Level3.net [4.68.100.131] 15 126 ms 84 ms 90 ms 4.79.2.2 16 95 ms 96 ms 95 ms W92-RTR-1.MIT.EDU [18.168.0.25] 17 96 ms 100 ms 95 ms WWW.MIT.EDU [18.7.22.83]

Trace complete.

From this output, we can see that our packets took 17 network layer hops to reach their destination.

We can see that our packets traversed both the AT&T and Level3 networks along the way.

We can also see the times the first, second, and third test packets took to cross each of the network hops.

In addition, we can see that the 2nd hop didn't respond to our request within 5 seconds. Because of this, we don't know the IP address of that network device.

What is ICMP?

ICMP is the Internet Control Message Protocol.

ICMP is a complementary protocol to IP (Internet Protocol). Like IP, ICMP resides on the Network Layer of the OSI Model.

ICMP is designed for sending control and test messages across IP networks.

Unlike the Transport Layer protocols TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and UDP (User Datagram Protocol) which operate on top of IP, ICMP exists alongside IP.

The ability to understand ICMP is a requirement for any IP-compatible network device. However, many security devices such as firewalls block or disable all or part of ICMP functionality for security purposes.

ICMP Message Types

ICMP operates by sending and receiving a limited number of messages types. The ICMP message types are defined in IANA ICMP Type Numbers.

The most common ICMP message types are:Type 0 3 4 5 Echo Reply Destination Unreachable Source Quench Redirect

Name

6 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 30

Alternate Host Address Echo Router Advertisement Router Solicitation Time Exceeded Parameter Problem Timestamp Timestamp Reply Information Request Information Reply Address Mask Request Address Mask Reply Traceroute

ICMP Echo Request and Echo Reply

The two most important ICMP messages are Echo Request (8) and Echo Reply (0).

Echo Request and Echo Reply are utilized by the `ping` command to test network connectivity.

Here we use the `ping` command to send three 64-byte ICMP Echo Request messages to www.freebsd.org and receive three Echo Reply messages in response: bash-2.05a$ ping -c 3 www.freebsd.org PING www.freebsd.org (216.136.204.117): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 216.136.204.117: icmp_seq=0 ttl=55 time=63.708 ms 64 bytes from 216.136.204.117: icmp_seq=1 ttl=55 time=62.725 ms 64 bytes from 216.136.204.117: icmp_seq=2 ttl=55 time=62.618 ms

--- www.freebsd.org ping statistics --3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 62.618/63.017/63.708/0.491 ms

This output tells us that network connectivity to www.freebsd.org is working. It also tells us the time each packet took to return.

`ping` is an extremely useful tool for network troubleshooting.

What is NAT (Network Address Translation)?

NAT (Network Address Translation) is a technique for preserving scarce Internet IP addresses.

Why NAT?

The current Internet uses IP addresses in the form xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx. A sample IP address might be 202.187.4.212.

Because of the way these IP addresses are allocated, there started to be a shortage of available IP addresses.

The current revision of IP (Internet Protocol) in use on the Internet is IPv4. IPv6 is largely a response to this potential IP address shortage.

Unfortunately, IPv6 is going to take decades to implement. A much quicker fix was needed, and that fix was NAT.

Private Address Space for NAT

To conserve IP address space, networks which are not directly connected to the Internet are often given private address space.

Private address space are ranges of IP address which cannot be routed over the Internet.

Private address space is often called "RFC 1918" space, because private address space is defined in RFC 1918 - Address Allocation for Private Internets.

RFC 1918 defines three sets of private address space:Start Size 10.0.0.0 172.16.0.0 10.255.255.255 172.31.255.255 /8 /12 /16

End

Network

192.168.0.0 192.168.255.255

The use of private address space conserves IP addresses because any person or company can use the same provate address space over and over again.

I have a 10.0.0.x network in my house. IBM has a 10.0.0.x network. HP has a 10.0.0.x network. Apple has a 10.0.0.x network. We're all using the same range of IP addresses.

The limitation is that private address space is non-routable. This means that any computer on these private IP addresses cannot (directly) connect to the Internet.

Network Address Translation to the Rescue!

The solution to work-around this limitation is NAT (Network Address Translation).

A NAT device, usually a firewall or a router, is placed between the private network and the Internet.

When computers on the private network want to communicate on the Internet, the NAT device quickly and silently modifies the packets they send to have a normal IP address.

When systems on the Internet send reply packets, the NAT device routes those reply packets back to the correct system on the private network.

In this way, hundreds or thousands of computers on the private network can share just one IP address on the public Internet.

For example, you might have 250 computers on the 192.168.1.x network and one firewall providing NAT services on the IP address 216.17.138.210. Any time one of the hosts communicates across the Internet, the NAT firewall changes the IP address of the packets to 216.17.138.210. When reply packets come from the Internet, the NAT firewall sorts them out and sends them to the correct internal host.

Types of NAT

The type of NAT just described is called One-to-Many NAT. This is because one IP address is shared by many hosts.

It is also possible to implement One-to-One NAT. This is where a host with a private IP address is given a dedicated public IP address in the NAT device. Oneto-One NAT is used to support some poorly designed protocols which do not work well over NAT.

How NAT Works

When a computer running NAT receives a packet from an internal client, it replaces the packet header and translates the client's port number and internal IP address to its own port number and external IP address. It then sends the packet to the destination host on the Internet, and keeps track of the mapping information in a table, so that it can route the reply to the appropriate client computer. When the computer running NAT receives a reply from the Internet host, it again replaces the packet header and sends the packet to the client. Both the client computer and the Internet host appear to be communicating directly with each other.

For example, a client computer with the IP address 192.168.10.2 wants to contact a Web server with the IP address 131.110.30.4. The client is configured to use 192.168.1.1 as the default gateway, which is the internal IP address of the computer running NAT. The external IP address of the computer running NAT is 131.110.5.1. In this example, the NAT process occurs as follows: The client computer sends a packet to the computer running NAT. The packet header indicates that the packet originates from port 1074 on the computer with the IP address 192.168.10.2, and has a destination of port 80 on 131.110.30.4.

The computer running NAT changes the packet header to indicate that the packet originates from port 1563 on host 131.110.5.1, but does not change the destination. The computer running NAT then sends the packet to the Web server over the Internet. The external Web server receives the packet and sends a reply. The packet header for the reply indicates that the packet originates from port 80 on 131.110.30.4, and has a destination of port 1563 on host 131.110.5.1. The computer running NAT receives the packet and checks its mapping information to determine the destination client computer. The computer running NAT changes the packet header to indicate a destination of port 1074 on 192.168.10.5, and then sends the packet to the client. The source of the packet remains as port 80 on 131.110.30.4, which is the IP address of the Web server.