Which Linux Command Answers It?

About this interactive

The lesson's Linux tools, by the question each answers: - **ip address** (or the older **ifconfig**): the host's interfaces, their addresses and MAC addresses, and whether each is up. - **dig:** a DNS query and its answer, such as the A record for a name. It is not always installed; the lesson adds it with the dnsutils package. - **traceroute:** each router on the path to a destination, with its delay (tracert on Windows). - **arp** (arp -a): the neighbor cache, the IP-to-MAC mappings learned on the local network. - **netstat:** the host's connections, with local and remote addresses, ports and states. - **ip route** (or the older **route**): the routing table, including the default route, the gateway to the outside world. Unlike Windows, Linux ping keeps going until you press Ctrl+C and then prints a summary. Typing these commands and reading their output waits for the terminal activity type.

What you'll learn

Choose the Linux command-line tool that answers a troubleshooting question: ip address or ifconfig, dig, traceroute, arp, netstat, or ip route or route
Say what each tool tells you on a Linux host: its interfaces and addresses, a DNS answer, the path to a destination, the neighbor cache, open connections, or the routing table and default route

Aligned to

CompTIA Network+

5.5 Given a scenario, use the appropriate tool or protocol to solve networking issues.

Cisco CCST Networking

5.3 Run basic diagnostic commands and interpret the results

Key terms

Domain Name System: A hierarchical naming system that translates human-readable domain names into IP addresses.
Address Resolution Protocol: A protocol used to map an IP address to a physical MAC address on a local network.
traceroute: A Linux command-line tool that maps the path packets take to a destination host by displaying each intermediate hop and its latency.
dig: A Linux command-line tool used to query DNS servers and retrieve DNS records such as A, MX, and CNAME entries.
netstat: A command-line utility that displays active network connections, listening ports, and protocol statistics on a local system.
Default Gateway: The router that a device uses to send traffic to destinations outside its local network.

Topics

Troubleshooting Linux Command Line Tools Dig Traceroute Ip Command Interactive Categorize

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