Tools to Determine Last Available Network Hop

A network engineer is working on a network connectivity problem between a site in California and a site in New York.

The connection went down overnight, and the engineer is unsure where the connection failed.

The technician is logged into the primary switch in the customer's network, which is also the company's connection to the WAN.

Which of the following tools should the technician use to determine the last available network hop?

A.

netstat

B.

Nmap

C.

traceroute

D.

pathping.

C.

In this scenario, the network engineer needs to determine the last available network hop between a site in California and a site in New York, as the connection went down overnight and the technician is unsure where the connection failed. To do so, the technician should use the traceroute tool.

Traceroute is a network diagnostic tool that is used to trace the path of a packet from the source to the destination, by sending packets with increasingly large TTL (time-to-live) values and examining the ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) error messages returned by each router along the path. By doing so, traceroute can determine the routers that the packet passes through, and the round-trip time (RTT) between the source and each router.

By using traceroute from the primary switch in the customer's network, the technician can determine the routers that the packets are passing through on the way to the destination site. By analyzing the output of the traceroute tool, the technician can determine the last available network hop before the connection fails.

Option A, netstat, is a command-line tool used to display active network connections and their current state. It is not used to determine the last available network hop.

Option B, Nmap, is a network scanning tool used to discover hosts and services on a network, and to create a map of the network. It is not used to determine the last available network hop.

Option D, pathping, is a Windows tool that combines the functionality of traceroute and ping, by sending packets with increasing TTL values and collecting statistics on the packet loss and latency at each hop. However, it is not as widely used as traceroute and may not be available on all systems. In this scenario, the network engineer should use the more widely available and commonly used traceroute tool to determine the last available network hop.

Therefore, option C, traceroute, is the correct tool for the network engineer to use to determine the last available network hop between the site in California and the site in New York.