Using IPConfig
Thinking back on it I most likely should have only talked about ipconfig and left the route command to more advanced areas, but oh well. Starting in Windows 2000 ipconfig is the main tool to configure your IP protocol stack. In Windows 98 there is a graphical tool called Win IP cfg, but it seems to have been removed from later versions. When you type ipconfig at a command prompt you get a quick summary of your IP protocol stack, labeled nicely and cleanly. It gives you your IP address, subnet mask and default gateway. No need to check this column or that, its just there for you to read. Many times this is all the data you need if you’re just trying to check out the PC, but ipconfig can do so much more. By typing ipconfig /all at the command prompt you will get more information that you ever really wanted to know about the IP protocol stack. Along with the information mentioned above you get the descriptive name of the network card, the physical address or MAC address, of the network card, the IP address of any DHCP servers and the IP addresses of any DNS servers. The IP addresses of the DNS server can be quite useful when configuring a different PC or troubleshooting DNS problems. You can also flush your DNS cache with the ipconfig /flushdns option. Quite helpful when troubleshooting DNS problems or testing a new DNS server. Ipconfig also let you release and renew any DHCP connections by using the ipconfig /release and ipconfig /renew options respectively. This is very helpful while troubleshooting DHCP servers. If these options are greek to you or sound like things you would never use that is fine. Being a network administrator I tend to use this command at least once a week as connectivity to the Internet seems to be one of the most important tools any business can have and keeping this going is very important. TCP/IP connectivity over an internal network is important as well. In fact many of my client sites use TCP/IP as the only protocol. ipconfig help me keep these networks running well and does it far faster than any graphical utility could.
