What is Network Troubleshooting?
Table of Contents
The Network Troubleshooting is the process of identifying the cause of the errors and determining the potential issue. Below is one of the most common errors that we encounter in our daily life.
The Methodology of Troubleshooting
What is the methodology of Network Troubleshooting? How can we do network Troubleshooting?
There are series of steps followed to perform the Network Troubleshooting:-
Being an IT professional, One of the main tasks to perform is to resolve the issues that occur in the network operations.
The issues can occur at various levels of the networks and we need to identify the problems depending on which layer they belong to.
In the corporate world, the ticketing systems is used to deal with various problems and solve in an orderly manner by the respective engineers.
There are different kinds of ticketing systems and it is one of the basic skills you need to master to secure an entry level IT job. Ex:- Service Desk Plus ticketing system, Service Now etc
Physical Layer Troubleshooting(Layer 1):-
The physical layer is the primary layer where the data transmission starts and if that doesn’t work, it means the entire network goes down.
Some of the most common faults that occur at this layer are:-
- Broken Cables
- Wrong cabling
- Cabling distance
- Interference
- Older Equipment
Data Link Layer(Layer 2 ):-
The troubleshooting of the layers 2 deals mainly with LAN issues. Therefore, the problems we deal with at this layer include switches, hubs etc.
There are newest types of switches that we use in the corporate environment and can have multiple modules compared to the old switches.
The most common problems that can occur at this layer are:-
–>Faulty Modules:– The modules in the switches can be faulty and should be replaced after finding the errors.
–>Protocol Failures:- The protocols configured must be well defined and one of the protocols such as STP(Spanning Tree Protocol) if failed, can form a continuous loop through broadcast storms.
–>Bad configuration on Ports
–>VLAN Configuration:- Configure the respective VLAN’s properly or otherwise the routing process between the devices will stop as the communication cant be established.
Network Layer(Layer 3):-
The troubleshooting of the Network Layer is critical to resolve many issues in the network.
In the corporate environment a network monitoring tool will be used in-order to maintain and monitor the network components virtually .
The most common errors are:-
–>Lost Network Connectivity
–>Wrong Default Gateway
–>High Response Time
–>Unavailable by ICP ping
–>Wrong DNS (Domain Name Server) Configuration
TIP:- USE D.N.S –>8.8.8.8(Google Hosted D.N.S server)—>Configure the device to this to resolve the DNS server Problem.
Wireless Troubleshooting:-
Wireless network Troubleshooting can occur at various levels and resolving these issues are more hard and these can be complex.
The problems in the wireless network can arise anywhere between layer 1 to layer 3 and needs more troubleshooting knowledge.
Some common Problems that can occur are:-
–>Problems at various Layers
–>Access point problems such as distance, configuration etc
–>Frequency interference issues
–>Wrong Configurations