Network utilities are software utilities designed to analyze and configure various aspects of computer networks. The majority of them originated on Unix systems, but several later ports to other operating systems exist.
The most common tools (found on most operating systems) include:
ping, ping a host to check connectivity (reports packet loss and latency, uses ICMP).tracerouteshows the series of successive systems a packet goes through en route to its destination on a network. It works by sending packets with sequential TTLs which generate ICMP TTL-exceeded messages from the hosts the packet passes through.nslookup, used to query a DNS server for DNS data (deprecated on Unix systems in favour of the tool called “host” anddig; still the preferred tool on Microsoft Windows systems).
Other network utilities include:
spray, which sprays numerous packets in the direction of a host and reports results
Some usages of network configuration tools also serve to display and diagnose networks, for example:
- iproute2 (on Linux)
ifconfig(on Unix)ipconfig(on Windows)routecan display an IP routing table
Famous quotes containing the words network and/or utilities:
“A culture may be conceived as a network of beliefs and purposes in which any string in the net pulls and is pulled by the others, thus perpetually changing the configuration of the whole. If the cultural element called morals takes on a new shape, we must ask what other strings have pulled it out of line. It cannot be one solitary string, nor even the strings nearby, for the network is three-dimensional at least.”
—Jacques Barzun (b. 1907)
“Flowers ... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)