Microsoft Windows
Most of the tools we have been discussing are available in one form or another for Windows platforms. Microsoft's implementation of traceroute, known as tracert, has both superficial and fundamental differences from the original implementation. Like ping, tracert requires a DOS window to run. We have already seen an example of its output. tracert has fewer options, and there are some superficial differences in their flags. But most of traceroute's options are rarely used anyway, so this isn't much of a problem. A more fundamental difference between Microsoft's tracert and its Unix relative is that tracert uses ICMP packets rather than UDP packets. This isn't necessarily bad, just different. In fact, if you have access to both traceroute and tracert, you may be able to use this to your advantage in some unusual circumstances. Its behavior may be surprising in some cases. One obvious implication is that routers that block ICMP messages will block tracert, while traceroute's UDP packets will be passed. As noted earlier in this chapter, Mentor's Java implementation of ttcp runs under Windows if you can find it. Both netperf and iperf have also been ported to Windows. Another freely available program worth considering is Qcheck from Ganymede Software, Inc. This program requires that Ganymede's Performance Endpoints software be installed on systems at each end of the link. This software is also provided at no cost and is available for a wide variety of systems ranging from Windows to MVS. In addition to supporting IP, the software supports SPX and IPX protocols. The software provides ping-like connectivity checks, as well as response time and throughput measurements. As noted in "Host Configurations", Microsoft also provides its own version of netstat. The options of interest here are -e and -s. The -e option gives a brief summary of activity on any Ethernet interface:C:\>netstat -e Interface Statistics Received Sent Bytes 9840233 2475741 Unicast packets 15327 16414 Non-unicast packets 9268 174 Discards 0 0 Errors 0 0 Unknown protocols 969
The -s option gives the per-protocol statistics:
C:\>netstat -s IP Statistics Packets Received = 22070 Received Header Errors = 0 Received Address Errors = 6 Datagrams Forwarded = 0 Unknown Protocols Received = 0 Received Packets Discarded = 0 Received Packets Delivered = 22064 Output Requests = 16473 Routing Discards = 0 Discarded Output Packets = 0 Output Packet No Route = 0 Reassembly Required = 0 Reassembly Successful = 0 Reassembly Failures = 0 Datagrams Successfully Fragmented = 0 Datagrams Failing Fragmentation = 0 Fragments Created = 0 ICMP Statistics Received Sent Messages 20 8 Errors 0 0 Destination Unreachable 18 8 Time Exceeded 0 0 Parameter Problems 0 0 Source Quenchs 0 0 Redirects 0 0 Echos 0 0 Echo Replies 0 0 Timestamps 0 0 Timestamp Replies 0 0 Address Masks 0 0 Address Mask Replies 0 0 TCP Statistics Active Opens = 489 Passive Opens = 2 Failed Connection Attempts = 69 Reset Connections = 66 Current Connections = 4 Segments Received = 12548 Segments Sent = 13614 Segments Retransmitted = 134 UDP Statistics Datagrams Received = 8654 No Ports = 860 Receive Errors = 0 Datagrams Sent = 2717
Interpretation is basically the same as with the Unix version.