![]() ![]() Sometimes, you have to guide customers through this process. To find out what your default gateway is, you have to open up a command window in Windows or a shell window in Linux. Invariably, they don't know what their default gateway is. Usually, when I'm on the phone with customers troubleshooting a problem, this needs a bit more explanation. ![]() So, the first thing I do is see whether I can at least ping my default gateway or router. Anyway, at this point, it's not a network problem it's a server issue.īut, what if you weren't even able to ping the server? Now it's looking like a network problem, but where? In general, when faced with a problem like this, I usually like to split the problem in half. As a quick reminder, mail is usually on 25. ![]() Of course, you need to know the port number for the service you are trying to access. The other response you might get from the telnet command is a connection-refused message this indicates that the service has crashed and is no longer accepting incoming connection requests. This also could indicate that a firewall is blocking access, but we're assuming that this worked before and that the firewall policy hasn't changed. If you see a timeout error message, or nothing at all, it implies that the server either is brain dead or is so heavily loaded that it can't process your request. What you see next will tell you how healthy the server on the other end is. For a Web server that listens on port 80, you simply can issue a command like the following: Many times, you can confirm this with the telnet command. If you can ping the server but the service isn't available, network connectivity is there and the service is actually down. In this case, either the DNS server is down, or the client is configured improperly. Domain Name Service, or DNS, is a network service that resolves hostnames to IP addresses and vise versa. If that DOES work, the problem is with DNS. If that doesn't work, try to ping it by its IP address. First, try to ping it by its fully qualified hostname, as an example. My gut reaction is to try to ping the server that provides the service we are trying to access. “Has this worked before?” “Did you make any changes recently?” As a technician, you should check to see whether the cable actually is plugged in you'd be amazed at how many times that really happens! So, once you've confirmed that you really can't access the network resource, the fun begins. ![]() Before raising the red flag, you should check the basics. Typically, these problem reports come in because a customer can't reach a Web site, e-mail or printer. Actually, it is magic, but it's not a magic that we can't learn to troubleshoot. To them, the Internet, and networking in general, was just “Pure Freaking Magic”. I've known quite a few hardware technicians or software developers who were very good at what they did, but who didn't have the first clue as to how to diagnose a network problem. But you've got to know that help desks get this type of trouble report more frequently than they should. Back when I worked in the Network Operations department at one of my previous jobs, we used to chuckle when a customer would call us reporting that “the Internet is down.” Now, I realize that there are otherwise intelligent computer users out there who don't understand why that might cause a technician to chuckle, and I'm not trying to make fun of them. ![]()
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