An administrator suspects that a gateway machine on the network has failed but they are unsure which machine. Which of the following commands will help locate the problem?

The `ps` command displays information about running processes on the local system, which is unrelated to network path or connectivity issues to a gateway.

The `netstat` command shows network connections and routing tables on the local machine but does not provide a hop-by-hop trace to diagnose where a gateway is failing along a path to an external destination.

The `nslookup` command queries DNS servers for domain name resolution and is not directly used to locate a failed network gateway.

The `ifconfig` command configures and displays network interface parameters on the local machine and does not provide information about network path or external gateway status.

The `traceroute` command diagnoses routing issues by sending packets with incrementing Time-To-Live (TTL) values, causing intermediate routers (gateways) to return ICMP 'Time Exceeded' messages. This process reveals the sequence of hops and latency to each, making it effective for identifying precisely where connectivity might be failing to a gateway or beyond.