Appendix A - TCP/IP Utilities Reference

This appendix is a reference for using Microsoft TCP/IP utilities, which are diagnostic and connectivity utilities for network and connectivity administration. These client utilities are provided for file transfer, terminal emulation, and network diagnostics.

Diagnostic commands help you detect TCP/IP networking problems. Connectivity commands enable users to interact with and use resources on Microsoft hosts and non-Microsoft hosts such as UNIX workstations. The following commands are included:

• Diagnostic commands: arp, hostname, ipconfig, lpq, nbtstat, netstat, ping, route, and tracert

• Connectivity commands: finger, ftp, lpr, rcp, rexec, rsh, telnet, and tftp

Important

All passwords used by Windows networking services are encrypted. However, the ftp, ftpsvc, rexec, and telnet connectivity utilities all rely on clear-text password authentication by the remote computer. Clear-text passwords are not encrypted before being sent over the network. This enables another user equipped with a network analyzer on the same network to steal a user's remote account password. For this reason, it is strongly recommended that users of these utilities choose different passwords than their Windows NT-based workgroup, workstation, or domain for the passwords used on non-Microsoft remote computers to which they connect by using the ftp, ftpsvc, rexec, and telnet utilities.

Note

Switches used in the syntax for TCP/IP commands are case-sensitive. For example, for nbtstat, the switch -R has a different effect from the -r switch.

See also the topic "TCP/IP Procedures Help" in Control Panel Help.