Which command shows active connections and listening ports on a host?

Which command shows active connections and listening ports on a host?

• A. Traceroute
• B. netstat
• C. Ping
• D. Nslookup

Answer: (B)

Netstat is the command that shows active connections and listening ports on a host. It reports current TCP and UDP connections, including the state of each connection (such as ESTABLISHED) and which sockets are listening for new connections. This directly answers which services are currently connected or ready to accept connections on which ports. In contrast, traceroute maps the path to a remote host, ping tests reachability, and nslookup queries DNS records, none of which reveal the host’s active connections or listening ports. Netstat can be invoked with options to focus on listening ports and active connections in numeric form, making it the most direct tool for this purpose.

Netstat is the command that shows active connections and listening ports on a host. It reports current TCP and UDP connections, including the state of each connection (such as ESTABLISHED) and which sockets are listening for new connections. This directly answers which services are currently connected or ready to accept connections on which ports. In contrast, traceroute maps the path to a remote host, ping tests reachability, and nslookup queries DNS records, none of which reveal the host’s active connections or listening ports. Netstat can be invoked with options to focus on listening ports and active connections in numeric form, making it the most direct tool for this purpose.