To check whether TCP/IP is installed on the system or not.

The TCP/IP stack is usually installed by default on all Windows 2000/XP/Server products. On earlier versions of Windows, you could add/remove the TCP/IP stack by visiting the network interface card's properties. The Install/Remove option should be available for you.

The good news is that all Linux versions these days have the TCP/IP stack installed by default, so you shouldn't need to do much work, other than configure your network interface cards as required. This of course is a process that differs from one Linux distribution to another.

A quick check to confirm the TCP/IP stack is operating properly, can be done by pinging your machine's loopback interface as shown below:

C:Documents and SettingsAdministrator>ping loopback
Pinging firewall.cx [127.0.0.1] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128

Ping statistics for 127.0.0.1:
       
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss)

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
         
     Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms

If successful, then you know the TCP/IP stack is operating correctly. This works with all Windows and most Linux distributions.
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