Traceroute
From JumbaWiki
traceroute is a network tool used to determine the route taken by packets across a network, and is often used when troubleshooting network connection problems. Traceroute can be used with either an IP address or a hostname
- Windows command: tracert mydomain.com or tracert 130.94.122.199
- Linux or Mac OS X command: traceroute mydomain.com or traceroute 130.94.122.199
Sample output
Tracing route to mydomain.com [203.88.116.201] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 75 ms 32 ms 33 ms lo0.syd-lns2.nsw.*******.com.au [202.173.128.**] 2 * * * Request timed out. 3 29 ms 32 ms 33 ms AS4739.sydney.pipenetworks.com [218.100.2.17] 4 35 ms 33 ms 32 ms pos3-0.cor1.cbr1.internode.on.net [203.16.212.238] 5 37 ms 33 ms 33 ms gi0-3.bdr1.cbr1.aussiehq.net.au [150.101.160.81] 6 33 ms 39 ms 43 ms possum.cbr.hosting-server.com.au [203.88.116.201] Trace complete.
Technical details
Traceroute works by sending out batches of small data packets, and increasing the TTL (time to live) value of each successive batch. It uses the returning packets to produce a list of hosts that the packets have traversed en route to the destination, and shows timestamp values for each host, which are typically in milliseconds (ms). If a packet does not return within the expected time, a star (asterisk) is shown.
The output from traceroute is used only as a guide, since not all of the data packets will necessarily take the same route.
Traceroute information has been frequently used by hackers as a way to acquire sensitive information about a company's network architecture, and for this reason some companies will block traceroute requests. However you can still use traceroute up to the borders of such blocked sites.
