In this exercise, you will use the nbtstat command to resolve a NetBIOS name.
- Open the command prompt by selecting Start > Run. Type cmd.
- At the command prompt, type nbtstat /?. You should see the list of valid switches, as shown in Table 5.2.
- Enter nbtstat -a name, where name is the NetBIOS name of your computer. You should see output displaying the NetBIOS name table and MAC address of the local computer.
- Try entering nbtstat -c. If there have been any recent successful attempts to resolve a NetBIOS name, the output of this command should include a list of names. If there haven’t been any recent successful attempts, the command will return the message “No names in cache.”
- If step 4 returns at least one name, you can use nbtstat to clear the name cache. Change the IP address of one of the machines that was listed in the output of step 4, and then try pinging the NetBIOS name of that machine. You should receive a timeout message because the cache is pointing to an IP address that is no longer valid for that machine. Now enter nbtstat -R to purge the cache, and try pinging the NetBIOS name of that machine again. You should get a response this time.
