10 Network Configuration & Troubleshooting Linux Commands.

Linux Configuration and troubleshooting commands.

In Today's day to day lifestyle as computers are very common the use of networking is also increasing. when a network media connects two or more computers it is called computer network. Its the job of system or network administrator to look after the running and control of the network. in this article we will be featuring 10 rapidly used configuration and troubleshooting linux commands.

1. GUI tool system-config-network 

Enter the command  system-config-network in command prompt to configure network setting and you will get nice Graphical User Interface (GUI) which may also use to configure IP Address, Gateway, DNS etc.

2. HOST Command

Host command  is used to find name to IP or IP to name in IPv4 or IPv6 and also query DNS records.

Using Host-t option we can find out DNS Resource Records like CNAME, NS, MX, SOA etc.

3. ARP Command

ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) is useful to view / add the contents of the kernel’s ARP tables.

4. NETSTAT Command

Netstat (Network Statistic) command display connection info, routing table information etc. To displays routing table information use option as -r.

5. NSLOOKUP Command

nslookup command also use to find out DNS related query.

6. ETHTOOL Command

Ethtool is a replacement of mii-tool. It is to view, setting speed and duplex of your Network Interface Card (NIC). You can set duplex permanently in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 with ETHTOOL_OPTS variable.

7. IWCONFIG Command

iwconfig command in Linux is use to configure a wireless network interface. You can see and set the basic Wi-Fi details like SSID channel and encryption. 

8. ifconfig

ifconfig (interface configurator) command is use to initialize an interface, assign IP Address to interface and enable or disable interface on demand. With this command you can view IP Address and Hardware / MAC address assign to interface and also MTU (Maximum transmission unit) size.

ifconfig with interface (eth0) command only shows specific interface details like IP Address, MAC Address etc. with -a options will display all available interface details if it is disable also.

9. PING Command

PING (Packet INternet Groper) command is the best way to test connectivity between two nodes. Whether it is Local Area Network (LAN) or Wide Area Network (WAN). Ping use ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) to communicate to other devices. You can ping host name of ip address using below command.

In Linux ping command keep executing until you interrupt. Ping with -c option exit after N number of request (success or error respond).

10. TRACEROUTE Command

traceroute is a network troubleshooting utility which shows number of hops taken to reach destination also determine packets traveling path.