DOS Applications for the Internet

By Carolyn Z. Gillay

Adapted from “Windows 98 Concepts & Examples” by Carolyn Z. Gillay (published by Franklin, Beedle & Associates). Download the PDF file for this article.

Overview

In the computer world of today, connectivity is the reality. Connectivity can mean connecting to other computers in your home or office. It can mean sharing resources such as printers or files on your computer, or accessing those resources from another computer. It can also mean connecting to resources throughout the world using the Internet. Networks provide these connections. Windows is designed for networking and allows you to network with others to collect information, to exchange files, and to share resources. This article provides basic information and practice activities for “ping” and “tracert”—two command line utilities useful with computers used to connect to the Internet.

PING

If you are using your browser and cannot connect to a site, ping is an easy diagnostic tool for checking to see if the computer you are trying to reach is up and running. You can use ping (Packet InterNet Groper) to check out your connection to your service provider or to another computer. Ping sends out a request to see if a computer at the address you specified is there. It affirms whether that computer is running. You can ping either the IP address or the host name of the computer you are trying to reach. Ping sends four packets of data to the specified computer. If your ping is successful, you see four replies on the screen display. If any of the packets did not successfully reach their destination or were returned to your computer, you will see a “Request timed out” message. If the IP address is verified but the host name is not, there is some kind of name resolution problem. You can also ping yourself using the special loopback address discussed earlier (127.0.0.1). However, you should be aware that pings are not always reliable. Some servers do not allow its servers to be pinged, because the server would then be wasting its time responding to pings.

Using PING (Activity)

Note: It is assumed you are logged on.

STEP 1 Open an MS-DOS window.

STEP 2 Key in the following: ping www.fbeedle.com <Enter>

C:\WINDOWS>ping www.fbeedle.com

Pinging www.fbeedle.com [199.2.194.43] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 199.2.194.43: bytes=32 time=188ms TTL=245
Reply from 199.2.194.43: bytes=32 time=181ms TTL=245
Reply from 199.2.194.43: bytes=32 time=186ms TTL=245
Reply from 199.2.194.43: bytes=32 time=181ms TTL=245
Ping statistics for 199.2.194.43:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 181ms, Maximum =  188ms, Average =  184ms
C:\WINDOWS>_

What’s Happening? You have successfully pinged Franklin, Beedle & Associates, the publisher of eTechNotes. Note the IP address.

STEP 3 Key in the following: ping 199.2.194.43 <Enter>

C:\WINDOWS>ping 199.2.194.43
Pinging 199.2.194.43 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 199.2.194.43: bytes=32 time=183ms TTL=245
Reply from 199.2.194.43: bytes=32 time=196ms TTL=245
Reply from 199.2.194.43: bytes=32 time=189ms TTL=245
Reply from 199.2.194.43: bytes=32 time=191ms TTL=245
Ping statistics for 199.2.194.43:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 183ms, Maximum =  196ms, Average =  189ms
C:\WINDOWS>_

What’s Happening? You have pinged both the IP address and the host name. You now know this site is up and running.

STEP 4 Key in the following: ping 127.0.0.1 <Enter>

C:\WINDOWS>ping 127.0.0.1
Pinging 127.0.0.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=128
Ping statistics for 127.0.0.1:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% los
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 0ms, Maximum =  0ms, Average =  0ms
C:\WINDOWS>_

What’s Happening? You have just “pinged” yourself. Remember that 127.0.0.1 is the loopback address and is the IP address of your computer.

STEP 5 Close the MS-DOS window.

STEP 6 If you are going to continue with the activities, remain logged on. Otherwise, log off the system.

TRACERT

Tracert, pronounced “trace route,” is a utility that traces the route on which your data is moving. It is a diagnostic utility that determines the route to the destination computer by sending packets containing time values (TTL-Time to Live). Each router along the path is required to decrease by 1 before forwarding it. When the value of the TTL is 0, the router is supposed to send back a message to the originating computer. When you use the command, it returns a five-column display. The first column is the hop number, which is the TTL value. Each of the next three columns contains the round-trip times in milliseconds. The last column is the host name and IP address of the responding system. An asterisk means that the attempt timed out. If nothing else, it is fascinating to see the way your data travels. Since tracert uses pings, you may not be able to trace a route if the server you are looking for does not allow pinging.

Using TRACERT (Activity)

Note: It is assumed you are logged on.

STEP 1 Open an MS-DOS window.

STEP 2 Key in the following: tracert www.bookbiz.com <Enter>

C:\WINDOWS>tracert www.bookbiz.com
Tracing route to alpha.bookbiz.com [209.75.8.12]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
  1     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  2   148 ms   145 ms   144 ms  gw-backbone.delta.net [199.171.190.11]
  3   150 ms   147 ms   146 ms  Hssi5-1-0.GW1.LAX1.ALTER.NET [137.39.134.41]
  4   148 ms   157 ms   146 ms  103.ATM2-0-0.XR1.LAX4.ALTER.NET [146.188.248.194]
  5   148 ms   148 ms   147 ms  193.ATM1-0-0.BR1.LAX1.ALTER.NET [146.188.248.201]
  6   159 ms   159 ms   162 ms  sl-bb4-ana-1-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.8.181]
  7   162 ms   161 ms   162 ms  sl-bb21-ana-3-2.sprintlink.net [144.232.1.25]
  8   165 ms   159 ms   161 ms  sl-gw7-ana-0-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.1.34]
  9   159 ms   159 ms   162 ms  sl-atmn-1-0-T3.sprintlink.net [144.228.79.14]
 10   167 ms   164 ms   172 ms  sd-gw-1-OC3c.atmnet.net [207.67.242.6]
 11   170 ms   167 ms   169 ms  daedal-gw.atmnet.net [207.67.241.118]
 12   178 ms   260 ms   176 ms  alpha.bookbiz.com [209.75.8.12]
Trace complete.

C:\WINDOWS>_

What’s Happening? Your display will be different. In this example, the sending computer is in Orange, California. The Web site, bookbiz.com, is on a computer in San Diego. It is part of the daedal.net domain. If you look at the rightmost column, you can see what computers the packets are traveling on. The packets go out first on delta.net, which is this user's ISP. It then goes to a connection in Los Angeles, then to Sprint (a long distance telephone service) and travels to San Francisco. It then hops to atmnet, another data provider, which brings the data to San Diego. As you can see, the packets traveled up and down the California coast in milliseconds.

STEP 3 Key in the following: tracert www.musicianstore.com <Enter>

  1     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  2   147 ms   149 ms   141 ms  gw-backbone.delta.net [199.171.190.11]
  3   148 ms   142 ms   145 ms  Hssi5-1-0.GW1.LAX1.ALTER.NET [137.39.134.41]
  4   144 ms   141 ms   141 ms  103.ATM2-0-0.XR2.LAX4.ALTER.NET [146.188.248.22]
  5   144 ms   151 ms   141 ms  192.ATM6-0-0.BR1.LAX1.ALTER.NET [146.188.248.29]
  6   154 ms   154 ms   164 ms  sl-bb4-ana-1-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.8.181]
  7   155 ms   153 ms   173 ms  sl-bb22-ana-3-2.sprintlink.net [144.232.1.29]
  8   212 ms   202 ms   197 ms  sl-bb11-fw-6-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.8.173]
  9   203 ms   203 ms   203 ms  144.232.1.218
 10   204 ms   204 ms   202 ms  sl-bb10-pen-2-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.8.158]
 11   207 ms   207 ms   205 ms  sl-bb5-pen-0-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.5.38]
 12   205 ms   204 ms   212 ms  sl-gw8-pen-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.228.60.10]
 13   222 ms   217 ms   220 ms  sl-mhv-1-0-T1.sprintlink.net [144.228.160.42]
 14   223 ms   224 ms   219 ms  router1.mhv.net [199.0.0.11]
 15   226 ms   232 ms   219 ms  205.161.180.10
 16   227 ms   222 ms   221 ms  ddrouter.fishkill.mhv.net [205.244.248.202]
 17   233 ms   224 ms   224 ms  ddrouter.wappfalls.mhv.net [205.244.248.161]
 18   235 ms   234 ms   237 ms  www.musicianstore.com [205.244.248.172]
Trace complete.

C:\WINDOWS>_

What’s Happening? In this case the company, which sells supplies for musicians, is located in San Francisco, California, but its server is in New York. Again, you can see that your request took a different route.

STEP 4 Key in the following: tracert www.fbeedle.com <Enter>

Tracing route to www.fbeedle.com [199.2.194.43]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
  1     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  2   146 ms   145 ms   144 ms  gw-backbone.delta.net [199.171.190.11]
  3   144 ms   151 ms   144 ms  Hssi5-1-0.GW1.LAX1.ALTER.NET [137.39.134.41]
  4   144 ms   144 ms   142 ms  103.ATM2-0-0.XR1.LAX2.ALTER.NET [146.188.248.18]
  5   142 ms   141 ms   139 ms  100.ATM3-0-0.TR1.LAX2.ALTER.NET [146.188.248.118]
  6   179 ms   184 ms   182 ms  111.ATM5-0-0.TR1.SEA1.ALTER.NET [146.188.137.150]
  7   185 ms   181 ms   183 ms  100.ATM5-0-0.XR1.SEA1.ALTER.NET [146.188.200.101]
  8   185 ms   179 ms   182 ms  195.ATM1-0-0.CR2.SEA1.ALTER.NET [146.188.200.25]
  9   188 ms   187 ms   184 ms  110.Hssi9-0-0.GW1.POR2.Alter.Net [137.39.58.61]
 10   189 ms   192 ms   192 ms  europa-gw.customer.ALTER.NET [157.130.176.86]
 11   200 ms   201 ms   199 ms  www.fbeedle.com [199.2.194.43]
Trace complete.
C:\WINDOWS>_

What’s Happening? In this example, your route goes from Orange, California, to Portland, Oregon.

STEP 5 Close the MS-DOS window.

  

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