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Network Troubleshooting Tools

By Joseph D. Sloan
First Edition August 2001
Pages: 364
ISBN 10: 0-596-00186-X | ISBN 13: 9780596001865

Book description

Network Troubleshooting Tools helps you sort through the thousands of tools that have been developed for debugging TCP/IP networks and choose the ones that are best for your needs. It also shows you how to approach network troubleshooting using these tools, how to document your network so you know how it behaves under normal conditions, and how to think about problems when they arise so you can solve them more effectively.
Full Description

Over the years, thousands of tools have been developed for debugging TCP/IP networks. They range from very specialized tools that do one particular task, to generalized suites that do just about everything except replace bad Ethernet cables. Even better, many of them are absolutely free. There's only one problem: who has time to track them all down, sort through them for the best ones for a particular purpose, or figure out how to use them? Network Troubleshooting Tools does the work for you--by describing the best of the freely available tools for debugging and troubleshooting. You can start with a lesser-known version of ping that diagnoses connectivity problems, or take on a much more comprehensive program like MRTG for graphing traffic through network interfaces. There's tkined for mapping and automatically monitoring networks, and Ethereal for capturing packets and debugging low-level problems. This book isn't just about the tools available for troubleshooting common network problems. It also outlines a systematic approach to network troubleshooting: how to document your network so you know how it behaves under normal conditions, and how to think about problems when they arise, so you can solve them more effectively. The topics covered in this book include:

Understanding your network
Connectivity testing
Evaluating the path between two network nodes
Tools for capturing packets
Tools for network discovery and mapping
Tools for working with SNMP
Performance monitoring
Testing application layer protocols
Software sources

If you're involved with network operations, this book will save you time, money, and needless experimentation.

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Cover | Table of Contents | Colophon

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Media reviews

"The information is well organized, easy to find, and well presented; over and above that, the book is a good read. Anyone interested in getting an insight into how TCP/IP Networks tick should read it."
--Major Keary, PC Update Nov 2002

"'Network Troubleshooting Tools' is a good primer for administrators who are working or interested in highly networked environments. It does a fine job of providing administrators and system programmers with a toolkit and methodology for troubleshooting connectivity related issues. This is a good well-rounded text. It covers simple things, such as how ping and traceroute work, to more complex tasks, such as using nemesis and hping to test firewalls with hand-crafted packets...certainly recommend Network Troubleshooting Tools for all but the most experienced system and network administrators. If you are less than a genius, there is something in it for you."
--Dengue, OpenBSD Journal

"If you're new to network admin, have inherited a network or are switching from one OS to another, this book will definitely come in very useful. Not only about pure problem solving, chapters on discovery, analysis and documentation round out a comprehensive book that discusses near my estimation, over 100 tools."
--Helen McManus, linuxchix.org

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