What is the Network Utility?
The Network Utility is a program that comes with modern Macs, as part of OSX, which has a number of different utilities to help give information on a network and perform simple tasks. In a basic install, the Network Utility resides in /Applications/Utilities, and has the name Network Utility.app. The Network Utility provides nine core aspects of functionality: Info, Netstat, AppleTalk, Ping, Lookup, Traceroute, Whois, Finger, and Port Scan. The Info feature of the Network Utility allows a user to easily find information on the network reached through different interfaces, which are accessible through a dropdown menu. Information includes the hardware address being used, the IP address assigned, the link speed, link status, and vendor information on the network adapter. It also provides traffic information, including incoming and outdoing packets. While it doesn’t have advanced troubleshooting features, it does show errors in both incoming and outgoing packets, and provides a collision