How do I traceroute to a server

From EGN Wiki

In a computer network context, a Traceroute is the process of sending a signal (ICMP packet(s)) to a host for the purposes of displaying the pathway and response times of the computers and/or routers that the signal traveled through.

As one might imagine, this is therefore very useful when trying to diagnose where network congestion issues may exist.

Most modern Operating Systems, come with a built in traceroute program that can perform this task. In Windows it is tracert and in Linux it is traceroute.

Traceroute in Windows

In Windows XP/Vista you need to issue the traceroute command via a DOS prompt - a full script is below:

1. Press Ctrl-R on your keyboard to get the Run prompt.
2. Type into the run prompt cmd and hit enter, this will display a black command line prompt box.
3. In the black command type tracert google.com and hit enter.
4. After a few seconds, you will begin to see the results of the trace route which should look like something below:
5. When you see the words Trace Complete - you have now successfully completed a traceroute.

If you are trying to troubleshoot a network issue, perhaps to report back to your ISP, then you might want to copy this output into an email.

In windows, to copy text from a command line prompt window:

1. After the trace is complete, Right click the command line prompt window and select Mark.
2. Your cursor will change, and by dragging the cursor across the text in the command line prompt window, you can highlight the text.
3. Once highlights, right click the selected text - this will copy it to clipboard.
4. Now go to your email program, or notepad, and simply right click, select paste.

Traceroute output example

 C:\Documents and Settings\Alex>tracert google.com
 
 Tracing route to google.com [72.14.207.99]
 over a maximum of 30 hops:
 
   1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  ###### [10.0.0.1]
   2    24 ms    23 ms    23 ms  adsl0.per.dft.net.au [202.61.225.65]
   3    24 ms    24 ms    24 ms  ge0-1.core.dft.net.au [202.61.224.178]
   4    26 ms    24 ms    25 ms  VLAN214.o6ssc76fe.optus.net.au [61.88.166.113]
   5   236 ms   238 ms   235 ms  ge-4-0-0-0.laxow-dr2.ix.singtel.com [203.208.149.34]
   6   236 ms   238 ms   238 ms  203.208.169.154
   7   240 ms   236 ms   245 ms  72.14.238.130
   8   295 ms   294 ms   288 ms  64.233.174.81
   9   305 ms   307 ms   305 ms  216.239.46.12
  10   308 ms   380 ms   305 ms  72.14.236.183
  11   313 ms   308 ms   319 ms  66.249.94.50
  12   311 ms   312 ms   310 ms  eh-in-f99.google.com [72.14.207.99]
 
 Trace complete.

Other Traceroute applications

• Matt's Traceroute mtr (Linux)
• PingPlotter (Windows XP) see version info.