What command line utility tests reachability to a specified IP address?

• A. Ping
• B. Tracert
• C. Nslookup
• D. Telnet

Answer: (A)

Testing reachability to an IP address is typically done by sending a simple ICMP echo request and waiting for a reply. This shows whether the destination can be reached across the network and provides a quick measure of latency with round-trip time. The tool that performs this test directly is ping. It can also accept a hostname, in which case it resolves the name first and then tests reachability to the resulting IP.

Traceroute (tracert) goes a step further by mapping the path to the destination, showing each hop and the delay to that hop, which helps identify where a route or latency issue occurs rather than just confirming reachability. DNS query tools like nslookup focus on resolving domain names to IP addresses and checking DNS records, not on network reachability. Telnet attempts a TCP connection to a specific port on a host, which tests whether a particular service is reachable, not the host’s overall reachability.

So for a straightforward test of whether an IP address (or its hostname) is reachable, ping is the best choice.