Network Troubleshooting Tools

Chapter 12. Troubleshooting Strategies

While many of the tools described in this book are extremely powerful, no one tool does everything. If you have been downloading and installing these tools as you have read this book, you now have an extensive, versatile set of tools. When faced with a problem, you should be equipped to select the best tool or tools for the particular job, augmenting your selection with other tools as needed.

This chapter outlines several strategies that show how these tools can be used together. When troubleshooting, your approach should be to look first at the specific task and then select the most appropriate tool(s) based on the task. I do not describe the details of using the tools or show output in this chapter. You should already be familiar with these from the previous chapters. Rather, this chapter focuses on the selection of tools and the overall strategy you should take in using them. If you feel confident in your troubleshooting skills, you may want to skip this chapter.

Generic Troubleshooting

Any troubleshooting task is basically a series of steps. The actual steps you take will vary from problem to problem. Later steps in the process may depend on the results from earlier steps. Still, it is worth thinking about and mapping out the steps since doing this will help you remain focused and avoid needless steps. In watching others troubleshoot, I have been astonished at how often people perform tests with no goal in mind. Often the test has no relation ...