An administrator thinks that a particular network connection is dropping packets.
Which of the following tools would the administrator use to BEST identify where the packets are being dropped?
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A. B. C. D.A.
The tool that would BEST help an administrator identify where packets are being dropped on a network connection is the 'tracert' (short for trace route) command.
Tracert is a command-line tool used to trace the route that a packet takes from its source to its destination. When the administrator runs the tracert command on a particular network connection, the command sends a series of ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) packets with increasing time-to-live (TTL) values. Each router along the way that receives the packet decrements the TTL value by one. When the TTL value reaches zero, the router discards the packet and sends an ICMP 'time exceeded' message back to the sender. This process continues until the packet reaches its destination, and the tracert command displays the route that the packet took and the time it took for each router to respond.
If the administrator notices that the tracert output shows that packets are being dropped at a particular router or hop, they can then investigate that router to determine the cause of the problem, such as a misconfigured firewall rule or a faulty router interface. Alternatively, the administrator can use other tools such as ping or netstat to gather additional information about the network connection, but tracert provides a more detailed view of the path that the packets take and where they are being dropped.
Therefore, in the given scenario, the BEST tool that the administrator can use to identify where the packets are being dropped is the 'tracert' command.