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traceroute
The traceroute program (some systems use the similar tracepath program in- stead) displays a listing of all the “hops” network traffic takes to get from the local sys- tem to a specified host. For example, to see the route taken to reach slashdot.org, we would do this:
[me@linuxbox ~]$ traceroute slashdot.org
[me@linuxbox ~]$ traceroute slashdot.org
1.066 ms 1.366 ms 1.720 ms
1.066 ms 1.366 ms 1.720 ms
ge-4-13-ur01.rockville.md.bad.comcast.net (68.87.130.9)
14.885 ms 15.169 ms
po-30-ur02.rockville.md.bad.comcast.net (68.87.129.154)
17.626 ms 17.899 ms
po-60-ur03.rockville.md.bad.comcast.net (68.87.129.158)
15.983 ms 16.256 ms
po-30-ar01.howardcounty.md.bad.comcast.net (68.87.136.5)
14.233 ms 14.405 ms
po-10-ar02.whitemarsh.md.bad.comcast.net (68.87.129.34)
13.600 ms 18.867 ms
ge-4-13-ur01.rockville.md.bad.comcast.net (68.87.130.9)
14.885 ms 15.169 ms
po-30-ur02.rockville.md.bad.comcast.net (68.87.129.154)
17.626 ms 17.899 ms
po-60-ur03.rockville.md.bad.comcast.net (68.87.129.158)
15.983 ms 16.256 ms
po-30-ar01.howardcounty.md.bad.comcast.net (68.87.136.5)
14.233 ms 14.405 ms
po-10-ar02.whitemarsh.md.bad.comcast.net (68.87.129.34)
13.600 ms 18.867 ms
14.622
14.622
17.634
15.992
22.835
16.154
te-0-3-0-1-cr01.philadelphia.pa.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.90.77)
17.634
15.992
22.835
16.154
te-0-3-0-1-cr01.philadelphia.pa.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.90.77)
The output looks like this:
traceroute to slashdot.org (216.34.181.45), 30 hops max, 40 byte
packets
traceroute to slashdot.org (216.34.181.45), 30 hops max, 40 byte
packets
1
2
3
ms 4
ms 5
ms 6
ms 7
ms 8
ipcop.localdomain (192.168.1.1)
* * *
1
2
3
ms 4
ms 5
ms 6
ms 7
ms 8
21.951 ms 21.073 ms 21.557 ms
9 pos-0-8-0-0-cr01.newyork.ny.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.85.10)
22.917 ms 21.884 ms 22.126 ms
10 204.70.144.1 (204.70.144.1) 43.110 ms 21.248 ms 21.264 ms
21.951 ms 21.073 ms 21.557 ms
9 pos-0-8-0-0-cr01.newyork.ny.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.85.10)
22.917 ms 21.884 ms 22.126 ms
10 204.70.144.1 (204.70.144.1) 43.110 ms 21.248 ms 21.264 ms
11 cr1-pos-0-7-3-1.newyork.savvis.net (204.70.195.93) 21.857 ms
cr2-pos-0-0-3-1.newyork.savvis.net (204.70.204.238) 19.556 ms cr1-
pos-0-7-3-1.newyork.savvis.net (204.70.195.93) 19.634 ms
12 cr2-pos-0-7-3-0.chicago.savvis.net (204.70.192.109) 41.586 ms
42.843 ms cr2-tengig-0-0-2-0.chicago.savvis.net (204.70.196.242)
43.115 ms
13 hr2-tengigabitethernet-12-1.elkgrovech3.savvis.net (204.70.195.122) 44.215 ms 41.833 ms 45.658 ms
14 csr1-ve241.elkgrovech3.savvis.net (216.64.194.42) 46.840 ms
43.372 ms 47.041 ms
15 64.27.160.194 (64.27.160.194) 56.137 ms 55.887 ms 52.810 ms
16 slashdot.org (216.34.181.45) 42.727 ms 42.016 ms 41.437 ms
11 cr1-pos-0-7-3-1.newyork.savvis.net (204.70.195.93) 21.857 ms
cr2-pos-0-0-3-1.newyork.savvis.net (204.70.204.238) 19.556 ms cr1-
pos-0-7-3-1.newyork.savvis.net (204.70.195.93) 19.634 ms
12 cr2-pos-0-7-3-0.chicago.savvis.net (204.70.192.109) 41.586 ms
42.843 ms cr2-tengig-0-0-2-0.chicago.savvis.net (204.70.196.242)
43.115 ms
13 hr2-tengigabitethernet-12-1.elkgrovech3.savvis.net (204.70.195.122) 44.215 ms 41.833 ms 45.658 ms
14 csr1-ve241.elkgrovech3.savvis.net (216.64.194.42) 46.840 ms
43.372 ms 47.041 ms
15 64.27.160.194 (64.27.160.194) 56.137 ms 55.887 ms 52.810 ms
16 slashdot.org (216.34.181.45) 42.727 ms 42.016 ms 41.437 ms
In the output, we can see that connecting from our test system to slashdot.org re- quires traversing sixteen routers. For routers that provided identifying information, we see their hostnames, IP addresses, and performance data, which includes three samples of round-trip time from the local system to the router. For routers that do not provide identi- fying information (because of router configuration, network congestion, firewalls, etc.), we see asterisks as in the line for hop number 2.