Using Traceroute Feature in Pinkie More Effectively!

May 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Traceroute is a feature often used in network troubleshooting. Pinkie, as a suite network troubleshooting tools, has this feature well integrated into its One Window, On App user interface and also enable you to execute the trace automatically thus eliminating the manual work and save time.

There are a number of fine enhancements added to Pinkie’s Traceroute feature that you can’t find in other tools:

  • Copy The Host Address: If you want to copy the host address on the Traceroute result, just simply click on the hop and either the IP address or the hostname (depends on your prefence in the Settings menu) will be copied automatically.
  • Manually Start/Stop a Traceroute: Right click on a host in the Workspace, select Traceroute and click on Start/Stop menu item to start/stop the traceroute.
  • Copy Last Hop Address: At times, a network administrator might need to log into the last hop router to troubleshoot network issues. To get the last hop router, just right click the host, select Traceroute then click on Copy Last Hop to Clipboard. Pinkie will figures out the last hop that responded to the traceroute and copy the IP address to the clipboard which can be then pasted into your favorite Telnet or SSH client.
  • Copy Traceroute Result to Clipboard: There will be time when a network administrator needs to send the traceroute result to a third party. This can be done easily in Pinkie’s Traceroute function by right click on the host, select Traceroute then click on Copy Result to Clipboard. The entire traceroute result for that particular host will be copied to the clipboard.
  • Save Traceroute Result to a File: Similar to copy result, sometime, you might just want to save the traceroute result to disk. This can be done by right click on the host, select Traceroute then click on Save to File. A Save As dialog will popup prompting you for the location where you want to save it.

Those are just some basic enhancements of the Traceroute feature in Pinkie. I’ll cover the rest in another Tips & Tricks blog.

With these enhancements, I hope you will not go back to the Command Prompt again to do another manual traceroute.

Filed Under: Tips & Tricks, Traceroute Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Using DNS Feature in Pinkie More Effectively!

May 18, 2012 By 2 Comments

DNS is a feature in Pinkie that uses the least amount of system resources. A DNS query happens very fast in a LAN environment. And that’s the reason why I have opted to enable the DNS lookup automatically every time a new host is pinged.

There are a few enhancements added to the DNS lookup in Pinkie that should make your work a little easier compared to the good old Command Prompt.

First off, Pinkie does the lookup automatically in the background. You don’t have to manually type the DNS query in the Command Prompt any more. Then there are the enhancements below:

  • Copy The IP Address: If you click on any IP address in the DNS result tab, the address will be copied to the clipboard automatically and you can paste it anywhere you like.
  • Force A DNS Lookup Manually: Right click on the host you to perform a DNS lookup, select DNS then click on Resolve. This will force Pinkie to do a DNS lookup.
  • Copy DNS Result: Right click on the host you want to copy, select DNS then click on Copy Result To Clipboard. After that you can paste it to another application.

    • For now, that should be sufficient. In the next release, if time permit, I’ll add some more enhancements that will be particularly useful in a large, enterprise environment.

    Hope you enjoy all of these enhancements to DNS. Let me know what you like or like not about them.

Filed Under: DNS, Tips & Tricks Tagged With: , ,

Using Ping Feature More Effectively!

May 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Ping is one of the features of Pinkie that I use extensively as a network admin.  In this blog, I’ll show you how to take advantage of all the extra enhancements that come with Pinkie which you don’t have in the Command Window.

  • Ping Multiple Hosts: Press F1 to bring up the Add Host Address dialog. Enter hosts/IP addresses which can be separated by space, comma, semi-colon, tab or a line feed.
  • Reduce/Increase # of Rows Displayed For Ping Results: By default, Pinkie will show you 4 lines of ping results. This can fill up the window pretty quick if you ping multiple hosts at the same time. To reduce the # of rows, press F3 or increase it by F4.
  • Check Ping Statistics For a Host: Select a host by clicking on it, the status bar at the bottom will change to show the ping statistics for the selected host which includes packets sent/received, lost count & percentage, last ping RTT along with Min, Max & Avg RTTs.
  • Start/Stop a Ping: Right click on the host you want to start/stop pinging, select Ping first menu item in the context menu will change to Start/Stop as appropriate. Clicking on it will stop a ping in progress or start it if it’s not started yet.
  • Reset Ping Statistics: Right click on a host you want to reset statistics, select Ping then click on Reset Statistics.
  • Copy Ping Results: When troubleshooting network or server issues, you might have the need to send the ping result to someone. This can be done by simply right click on the host and select Copy Result to Clipboard. then paste it to an email or wherever you wish.
  • Logging Ping Results to Disk: If you wish to log ping results to a file to analyze later or send it to someone else, right click on the host, select Ping then in the context menu, click on Start Logging or Stop Logging as appropriate. By default, the ping results will be saved in C:\Users\[username]\Documents\ipUptime.net\Pinkie_Logs\. You can change this path in the Settings menu.

That’s not all of the enhancements that come with the Ping feature in Pinkie but it will definitely make you like and use Pinkie more.

If you can come up with a better way to use Ping or wish to have enhancements added to it, please let me know.

Filed Under: Ping, Tips & Tricks Tagged With: , , , , ,