Network utilities

Network utilities are small computer programs that are used to test various aspects of computer networks. The majority of them were developed for Unix systems and were later ported to other operating systems

The most common tools that are found on most operating systems are:

• ping, ping a host to see if its up, reports packet loss and latency, uses ICMP
• traceroute sends out packets with sequential TTL's which generates ICMP TTL exceeded messages from the hosts the packet passes through.
• nslookup query a DNS server, has been deprecated on unix systems in favour of host and dig, still the only tool avalible on windows