Command Prompt - Advanced Networking

Commands
Retrieving Information About Your Network Connection
To obtain detailed information about your network connection, use the ipconfig command. Type
ipconfig in Command Prompt and press Enter. As you can see below, a list with the network
devices existing on your system and their IP addresses is displayed. You get also details such the
default gateway, subnet mask or the state of the network adapter.

With the /all switch you will get a whole new level of detail: DNS information, the MAC (Media
Access Control) (in the Physical Address field) and other information about each network
component. Check out the picture below to see a sample of the combination of ipconfig
command with the /all parameter.

It's worth mentioning that the ipconfig command allows you to perform certain operations, if you
use the right parameter. For example the ipconfig /release and ipconfig /renew commands force
your network adapter to drop and renew the current IP address. These parameters are useful in
networks that use DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) to distribute IP addresses
automatically. Basically your system gives up its current address and requests a new one from
the DHCP server. This can be very useful in certain networking scenarios.

Finding Your Computer's MAC Address

Another way to obtain the MAC address is to use the getmac command. Just type getmac and
press Enter, as shown below.

Testing the Connection to a Website or Network/Internet

Location

To test your connection to a certain website or another network or Internet location, you can use
the ping network command followed by a web-address or IP address. For example, if you want
to check the connectivity to our website, without opening a web browser, type ping
www.7tutorials.com and then press Enter.

This command allows you to use a quite useful parameter that enables you to ping the specified
address until it's stopped manually: -t. For example, I typed ping -t 192.168.2.1. After a period I
decided that I want to see some statistics and I used the keyboard combination CRTL + Break.
This shows the averages for the ping commands run until then. Finally I terminated the action by
using the keyboard combination CTRL+C. This stopped the endless cycle of ping commands to
the specified address.

Check Network Connections and Display Port Information

With the netstat command you will be able to see active network connections between your
system and any other systems on your network or the Internet.

The -a parameter shows all connections and listening ports. A sample can be seen in the image
below.