Traceroute

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The correct title of this article is traceroute. The initial letter is shown capitalized due to technical restrictions.
traceroute in action on Linux.
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traceroute in action on Linux.

traceroute is a computer network tool used to determine the route taken by packets across an IP network. An IPv6 variant, traceroute6, is also widely available.

The traceroute tool is available on practically all Unix-like operating systems. Variants with similar functionality are also available, such as tracepath on modern Linux installations and tracert on Microsoft Windows operating systems. Windows NT-based operating systems also provide pathping, which provides similar functionality.

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[edit] Implementation

traceroute works by increasing the "time-to-live" value of each successive batch of packets sent. The first three packets have a time-to-live (TTL) value of one (implying that they make a single hop). The next three packets have a TTL value of 2, and so on. When a packet passes through a host, normally the host decrements the TTL value by one, and forwards the packet to the next host. When a packet with a TTL of one reaches a host, the host discards the packet and sends an ICMP time exceeded (type 11) packet to the sender. The traceroute utility uses these returning packets to produce a list of hosts that the packets have traversed en route to the destination. The three timestamp values returned for each host along the path are the delay (aka latency) values typically in milliseconds (ms) for each packet in the batch. If a packet does not return within the expected timeout window, a star (asterisk) is traditionally printed. traceroute may not list the real hosts, it indicates that the first host is at one hop, the second host at two hops. IP does not guarantee that all the packets take the same route.

On modern Unix and Linux-based operating systems, the traceroute utility by default uses UDP datagrams with a destination port number starting at 33434. The traceroute utility usually has an option to specify use of ICMP echo request (type 8) instead, as used by the Windows tracert utility. There are also traceroute implementations that use TCP packets, such as tcptraceroute or Layer Four Trace. A new utility, pathping, was introduced with Windows NT, combining ping and traceroute functionality. Matt's Trace Route (MTR) is an enhanced version of icmp traceroute available for Unix and Windows systems under a GNU GPL license. All implementations of traceroute rely on ICMP (type 11) packets being sent to the originator.

[edit] Example

Estonia to the United States. 195.80.96.219 (kauge.aso.ee) to 130.94.122.199 (larousse.wikipedia.org).

Windows command : tracert 130.94.122.199

Linux or Mac OS X command : traceroute 130.94.122.199

1   et-gw.aso.ee
2   kjj-bb2-fe-0-1-4.ee.estpak.ee
3   noe-bb2-ge-0-0-0-1.ee.estpak.ee
4   s-b3-pos0-3.telia.net
5   s-bb1-pos1-2-0.telia.net
6   adm-bb1-pos1-1-0.telia.net
7   adm-b1-pos2-0.telia.net
8   p4-1-2-0.r00.amstnl02.nl.bb.verio.net
9   p4-0-3-0.r01.amstnl02.nl.bb.verio.net
10  p4-0-1-0.r80.nwrknj01.us.bb.verio.net
11  p4-0-3-0.r00.nwrknj01.us.bb.verio.net
12  p16-0-1-1.r20.mlpsca01.us.bb.verio.net
13  xe-1-2-0.r21.mlpsca01.us.bb.verio.net
14  xe-0-2-0.r21.snjsca04.us.bb.verio.net
15  p64-0-0-0.r21.lsanca01.us.bb.verio.net
16  p16-3-0-0.r01.sndgca01.us.bb.verio.net
17  ge-1-2.a03.sndgca01.us.da.verio.net
18  larousse.wikipedia.org

[edit] Origins

The traceroute man page states that the original traceroute program was written by Van Jacobson in 1987 from a suggestion by Steve Deering, with particularly cogent suggestions or fixes from C. Philip Wood, Tim Seaver and Ken Adelman.

[edit] Uses

Traceroute is often used for network troubleshooting. By showing a list of routers traversed, it allows the user to identify the path taken to reach a particular destination on the network. This can help identify routing problems or firewalls that may be blocking access to a site. Traceroute is also used by penetration testers to gather information about network infrastructure and IP ranges around a given host. It can also be used when downloading data, as if there are multiple mirrors available for the same piece of data, one can trace each mirror to get a good idea of which mirror would be the fastest to use.

[edit] See also

  • Layer Four Trace, a more modern traceroute (IP network tracing) implementation that supports a multitude of layer-4 protocols

[edit] Security concerns

Supplying such detailed information about the pathways taken was considered acceptable and convenient in the early days of the Internet, but later was considered questionable for privacy and security reasons. Traceroute information has been frequently used by hackers as a way to acquire sensitive information about a company's network architecture. By using the traceroute command, a hacker or several hackers can quickly map out what nodes are available on a company's network architecture and exploit vulnerable or compromised nodes/computers.

For these reasons, while traceroute was widely used during the early days of Internet, by the 1990s the vast majority of sites on the internet no longer offered the service.

[edit] External links

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This article was originally based on material from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, which is licensed under the GFDL.

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