7 Windows & Cisco commands for network troubleshooting

To Troubleshoot Cisco and Windows networks, you need to know command equivalents. Cisco and Windows commands are similar but not identical.

Here are 7 Windows and Cisco commands that you should know:

1. ping- used both in Windows and in the Cisco IOS to verify connectivity from of to a router (default gateway) and from a router to a PC.
2. traceroute or trace in the Cisco IOS or tracert in Windows - used to trace the path your network traffic takes to a destination (like the web server you are trying to access) or from your router to a downstream router.
3. arp -a in Windows or show ip arp in the Cisco IOS - used to verify Layer 2 to Layer 3 mappings (aka Ethernet to TCP/IP) or Ethernet MAC Address to IP Address (and vice versa).
4. ipconfig /all in Windows or show ip interface brief in the Cisco IOS - used to show the IP address configuration for your NIC on your PC or for your router’s LAN/WAN interfaces. This output would include the IP Address, Subnet Mask, Default Gateway, and (on a PC), even the DNS Servers.

These are all pretty basic commands but they are all necessary commands that you must know to troubleshoot Windows and Cisco Networking.

Happy Troubleshooting!