From LQWiki

This page is about gathering network information.

Contents 1 Whois 2 Ping 3 DNS 4 Trace Tool 5 GOOGLE

Whois

Whois gathers valuable registration information about the domain, nameservers, registrant name, address, agents and much more.

$ whois google.co.uk

Domain Name:
google.co.uk 

Registrant:
Google Inc

Registrant's Address:
2400 Bayshore Parkway
Mountain View
94043
CA

Registrant's Agent:
Alldomains.com, Inc. t/a Alldomains.com/NetCorps [Tag = ALLDOMAINS]
URL: http://www.alldomains.com

Relevant Dates:
Registered on: 14-Feb-1999
Renewal Date: 14-Feb-2005
Last updated: 18-Oct-2002 

Registration Status:
Registered until renewal date.

Name servers listed in order:
ns.google.com 216.239.32.10
ns2.google.com 216.239.34.10

For further information and terms of use please see http://www.nic.uk/whois

Ping

$ ping google.co.uk
Ping google.co.uk (216.239.57.104) ...
1 Addr:216.239.57.104, RTT: 149ms, TTL: 236
2 Addr:216.239.57.104, RTT: 148ms, TTL: 236
3 Addr:216.239.57.104, RTT: 148ms, TTL: 236
4 Addr:216.239.57.104, RTT: 148ms, TTL: 236
5 Addr:216.239.57.104, RTT: 148ms, TTL: 236
6 Addr:216.239.57.104, RTT: 148ms, TTL: 236
7 Addr:216.239.57.104, RTT: 148ms, TTL: 236
8 Addr:216.239.57.104, RTT: 148ms, TTL: 236
9 Addr:216.239.57.104, RTT: 148ms, TTL: 236
10 Addr:216.239.57.104, RTT: 148ms, TTL: 236

DNS

You can look up the IP of a URL with nslookup

$ nslookup google.co.uk
Server:         194.25.2.129
Address:        194.25.2.129#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:   google.co.uk
Address: 72.14.221.104
Name:   google.co.uk
Address: 216.239.59.104
Name:   google.co.uk
Address: 66.249.93.104

Trace Tool

The traceroute tool will allow you to trace the location of the machine by going through all hops.

Example:

$ traceroute wiki.linuxquestions.org
traceroute to wiki.linuxquestions.org (207.44.182.114), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
 1  * * *
 2  217.0.67.50 (217.0.67.50)  46.581 ms   50.950 ms   51.428 ms
 3  linx-gw13.LON.GB.net.DTAG.DE (62.154.5.38)  63.952 ms   64.326 ms *
 4  62.156.139.254 (62.156.139.254)  65.324 ms   66.032 ms   67.199 ms
 5  xe-0-2-0.r23.londen03.uk.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.2.66)  69.938 ms   72.809 ms   76.191 ms
 6  p64-1-0-0.r20.nycmny01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.3.254)  143.149 ms   148.302 ms   151.163 ms
 7  as-0.r21.asbnva01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.2.9)  142.727 ms   140.432 ms   142.740 ms
 8  p64-1-1-0.r20.dllstx09.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.5.24)  179.323 ms   183.963 ms   193.108 ms
 9  p64-1-0-0.r20.hstntx01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.4.71)  182.511 ms   191.886 ms   194.509 ms
10  xe-4-1.r03.hstntx01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.2.229)  195.134 ms   195.614 ms   196.246 ms
11  ge-1.ev1.hstntx01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.10.70)  196.754 ms   200.003 ms   200.629 ms
12  ivhou-207-218-245-29.ev1servers.net (207.218.245.29)  201.220 ms   201.739 ms   202.372 ms
13  ivhou-207-218-245-120.ev1servers.net (207.218.245.120)  168.366 ms   171.603 ms   172.693 ms
14  mx.linuxquestions.org (207.44.182.114)  169.538 ms   174.797 ms   177.053 ms
$

GOOGLE

By using google you can search for specific information about a company, you could even search the companies site for more information using the following:

site:www.google.co.uk passwd

This will search google.co.uk for all pages with passwd on or files, a index of these will be displayed once found.