Using network diagnostic tools

Diagnosing problems with network connections is an everyday job for a seasoned system engineer. It doesn't necessarily happen because we have problems in our own network, it can be other factors. For example, sometimes our local network works, while the internet connection doesn't. Or, even worse, customers report that some of them are able to access the internet, while some others can't. How do we approach these situations and which tools should we use? That's what we will talk about in this recipe. So, get ready to talk about ping, route, netstat, tracepath, and similar commands – that's what they're there for!

Getting ready

Let's install a CentOS virtual machine called server1 and use our existing clients (an Ubuntu virtual machine called client1 and a CentOS virtual machine called client2) to work on this recipe. We are going to use client1 to simulate a situation where the server on our local network...