A troubleshooting scenario
Now that we have outlined the process for troubleshooting network problems, as well as discussing a number of utilities available to help us in our diagnosis, it is time to consider a real-world example of a networking problem—something that you might well encounter if you were a network administrator. We will then apply our seven-step approach to troubleshooting to solve the problem.
A user cannot connect to a website
This is a common end user problem. The user cannot connect to a website, and they consistently get the same error message. This illustrates how important it is to gather information because without knowing more about the problem, we do not know which of many causes may be in play here:
- User error: Did the user mistype the URL or make a similar mistake?
- Computer configuration issue: This may be the case if new software/hardware was installed recently
- Network connection issue: Does the user's computer have network connectivity?
If the problem is with our...
