Head First Networking

Chapter 3. Tools and Troubleshooting: Into the Wire

How do you know when a network signal isn’t getting through a network cable? Often the first thing you’ll hear about it is when the network stops working effectively, but the trouble is, it’s hard to tell what’s wrong by just looking at a cable. Fortunately, there’s a raft of tools you can use that let you see deep into the heart of your network cables, down to the signal itself. Keep reading, and we’ll show you how to use these tools to troubleshoot your networks, and how to interpret the secrets of the signal.

Mighty Gumball won the Super Bowl contract

Mighty Gumball is the leading vendor of a wide variety of candies and chocolates, and they’ve just won an exclusive contract to sell their products at the next Super Bowl. With sales on the day and all the extra publicity, Mighty Gumball stands to make millions.

There’s just one problem. Mighty Gumball has recently been plagued by network problems, and it’s hitting gumball production. If they don’t get their network errors fixed soon, they won’t be able to produce enough gumballs in time for the Super Bowl, and they’ll lose the contract.

Toner and tracer sets can’t find every problem.

So ...