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Traceroute

Trace the path of a packet from your device to a destination on an IP network.

About Traceroute

Traceroute is a network diagnostic tool used to track the pathway taken by a packet of information from its source to its destination. It provides a detailed view of the route that network packets take across an IP network.

How Traceroute Works:

  • Traceroute sends a series of ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) packets to the destination.
  • Each packet has a Time to Live (TTL) value that's incrementally increased.
  • When a router receives a packet with TTL=1, it drops the packet and sends an ICMP Time Exceeded message back.
  • This process continues until the packet reaches its destination, revealing each hop along the way.

Benefits of Traceroute:

  • Identifying network bottlenecks and slow points in the connection.
  • Diagnosing routing problems and network outages.
  • Verifying network paths and troubleshooting connectivity issues.
  • Understanding the topology of the internet between two points.
  • Helping to determine if traffic is taking an expected or optimal path.

Traceroute Visualization

Local RouterTTL: 1
IP: 192.168.1.1
Latency: 2ms
Request Packet
Response Packet
Source Computer
Target Server

TRACEROUTE Command Explorer

Discover and execute TRACEROUTE commands to trace network routes.

The TRACEROUTE command is a network diagnostic tool used to trace the path packets take to a destination on an IP network. It shows the time taken for each hop along the way.

Basic traceroute to Google's domain

Shows the path packets take to google.com and the time taken for each hop. This is useful for identifying network bottlenecks or routing issues.

traceroute google.com

Traceroute with a maximum of 10 hops

Limits the traceroute to a maximum of 10 hops to github.com. This is helpful when you're only interested in the first part of the route or want to speed up the process.

tracert -h 10 github.com

Traceroute with a 5-second wait time per hop

Sets a 5-second timeout for each hop in the traceroute to example.com. This can be useful for slow or congested networks where responses might take longer.

traceroute -w 5 example.com

Traceroute with a hop limit (Windows only)

Limits the traceroute to 10 hops to cloudflare.com. Windows uses 'tracert' instead of 'traceroute' and has slightly different syntax.

tracert /h 10 cloudflare.com

Traceroute with IP addresses (no domain resolution)

Displays the IP addresses instead of hostnames for each hop to github.com. This can speed up the traceroute process and is useful when DNS resolution is slow or unavailable.

tracert -d github.com

Enter Your Own TRACEROUTE Command

Provide your own TRACEROUTE command to test.