The network tools section of cPanel is a great little addition that has a few simple tools that can be very useful at times. The two different options a user has are the ability to lookup information on a domain name and to do a trace route to the server from their computer. Each of these tools can be very useful in different circumstances, depending on how they are used.

Domain Lookup

The domain name lookup tool isn’t what most people consider it to be at first. No it’s not a WHOIS lookup utility. It’s used to determine the IP address that a domain name resolves to along with other useful “Zone” information.

The “Zone” information for a domain name is basically the IP address for; sub domain names, FTP server, and name servers currently being used by the domain name. This information can be used to trouble shoot certain problems with a domain name or DNS servers.

Important: This system will not report the “Zone” information for a domain name not present on the account.

This tool is most popular for giving an IP address for anything typed in. Basically it will process the domain name, name server, or sub domains entered and return the IP address in which it resolves to. This can be useful for many different things, including finding out ISPs or hosting provides.

On the reverse side users can also input an IP address and it will determine what the IP address points to. In most cases this will point to the master domain name on the server or account. This is useful for determining who is hosting someone, as most provides set their users up on a “Shard” hosting package. Basically everyone shares the same IP address and each account is determined by the domain name assigned to it. In some instances this will display the hosts’ provider, depending on how the system is setup. It’s meant to determine the owner of the IP address.

Example

Let’s take “webmasterstop.com” as an example here. We want to find out all the information possible about this domain name or site that we possible can. So the fist thing we’ll do is determine the IP address that the domain name resolves to. So we’ll enter the domain name in the “Domain Lookup” tool right on the front page.

Once the domain name has been processed we’ll now have the IP address in which the domain name resolves to.

Now that we have the IP address we can go back and type the IP address into the “Domain Lookup” tool to see what information that will display.

As we can see the IP address resolved to “96.183.199.66.prioritycolo.com” which is the owner of the IP address currently assigned to us. Prioritycolo.com is where our server is currently housed. Some providers won’t add their information to these types of results to keep this type of information private.

This tool can also be used to determine the IP address of name servers currently being used. Let’s say that we wanted to find out the IP address for a hosts name servers. We’ll simply type in the name servers into the “Domain Lookup” tool and it will display the IP address that the name server resolved to. Once an IP address has been obtained, it can be used with most WHOIS servers to determine the owner or who it’s assigned to by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers).

Trace Route

The trace route tool is used to trace the route that a user’s computer takes to reach their site. This can be very useful for users that hare having slow response to their server, loosing email, or other un-explained occurrences. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to use the trace route script provided by cPanel as it wasn’t active on our account. I will however still be able to explain it and use other screen shots that display the same information.

Traceroute: Traceroute is a utility that records the route or hops from your computer through the Internet to the destination computer.

A computer can anywhere from one hope up to more then 50 hops or routes to a destination computer. Users will travel through man providers (ISPs) to get to where they are going. This is what the Internet is made up of, a spider web of computers networked together. Each time a request is sent for a domain name or IP address, the information will travel through these different computers or networks to reach its destination. Each time it connects to another computer it is referred to as a “hop”. Many ISPs will use trace routes to determine where the problem lies.

This can also be useful if a hosting provider is responding slow or not responding at all. Windows has a trace route utility already installed that can be used at any time.

Open Traceroute Utility

Start >> Run
Enter “cmd” and click Ok
Once the DOS prompt has opened type “tracert domain.com” and hit enter

The tracert program will automatically run and start the trace route from the user’s computer to the destination domain name or IP address.

Sample Output

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:Documents and SettingsMike>tracert webmasterstop.com

Tracing route to webmasterstop.com [66.199.183.96]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 10 ms 10 ms 9 ms 10.239.58.1
3 11 ms 10 ms 10 ms c-66-56-66-65.atl.client2.attbi.com [66.56.66.65]
4 11 ms 11 ms 12 ms 12.118.120.89
5 13 ms 16 ms 12 ms tbr1-p012201.attga.ip.att.net [12.123.21.138]
6 25 ms 26 ms 27 ms tbr2-cl1.wswdc.ip.att.net [12.122.10.69]
7 33 ms 41 ms 33 ms tbr2-cl1.n54ny.ip.att.net [12.122.10.53]
8 34 ms 39 ms 39 ms gar1-p3101.nwrnj.ip.att.net [12.123.0.33]
9 31 ms 32 ms 32 ms att-gige.esd1.nwr.nac.net [12.119.140.26]
10 36 ms 34 ms 32 ms 3.ge-3-0-0.gbr2.nwr.nac.net [209.123.11.189]
11 53 ms 49 ms 51 ms 0.pos-9-1.esd1.tor.nac.net [209.123.11.226]
12 51 ms 49 ms 51 ms prioritycolo.customer.nac.net [207.99.1.186]
13 51 ms 50 ms 53 ms vlan15-0.csr01.prioritycolo.com [204.11.48.246]
14 54 ms 56 ms 51 ms 96.183.199.66.prioritycolo.com [66.199.183.96]

Trace complete.

C:Documents and SettingsMike>

As we can see from the above, it took 14 hops or routes to get from my system to webmasterstop.com or the IP address 66.199.183.96. The first things we can understand and pick up are the routes that are taken from my ISP to Webmaster Stops’ provider.

All the “ms” readings are how long it took the information to get from hop to hop. “ms” stands for milliseconds. There are 1,000 milliseconds in 1 second. So the lower the ms reading the faster.

Sample Bad Output

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:Documents and SettingsMike>tracert msn.com

Tracing route to msn.com [207.68.172.246]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 11 ms 11 ms 9 ms 10.239.58.1
3 20 ms 11 ms 9 ms c-66-56-66-65.atl.client2.attbi.com [66.56.66.65]
4 13 ms 10 ms 13 ms 12.118.120.89
5 16 ms 11 ms 17 ms tbr2-p013901.attga.ip.att.net [12.123.21.142]
6 35 ms 30 ms 28 ms tbr1-cl1.dlstx.ip.att.net [12.122.2.89]
7 59 ms 58 ms 58 ms tbr1-cl2.la2ca.ip.att.net [12.122.10.50]
8 77 ms 67 ms 70 ms tbr2-cl3.sffca.ip.att.net [12.122.10.25]
9 81 ms 81 ms 92 ms tbr1-cl1.st6wa.ip.att.net [12.122.12.114]
10 80 ms 80 ms 79 ms 12.122.80.41
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.

We used MSN for this example because they block ICMP and it will block our trace route and return a “Request timed out” error. When a user sees this or sees and asterisks in their results, that normally means there was a problem or a loss in packets. This is normally what ISPs and providers are looking for, as 90% of the time it’s the source of the problem.
 

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