Which command is useful for determining the IP address of a target hostname?

The command that is most useful for determining the IP address of a target hostname is nslookup. This command queries the Domain Name System (DNS) to obtain the mapping between hostnames and their corresponding IP addresses. When you enter a hostname, nslookup sends a request to the DNS server, which returns the IP address associated with that hostname. This functionality is crucial for network troubleshooting, configuration, and understanding how devices communicate over the internet.

While other commands have their specific uses in networking, they do not directly fulfill the primary purpose of resolving hostnames to IP addresses as nslookup does. For instance, ipconfig is primarily used to display network configuration information and can show the local IP addresses of your own machine. Tracert is used to trace the path data takes to reach a destination, providing information about the route taken rather than resolving a hostname. The ping command, while it can display IP addresses in its output, primarily tests connectivity to a host rather than being a dedicated tool for resolving names. Thus, nslookup stands out as the most effective command for fetching IP addresses for given hostnames.