A Traceroute session

Traceroute is used to list the routers on the path between two hosts.

The following session shows the route between my home computer and the host www.yahoo.com: 

C:\>tracert www.yahoo.com

Tracing route to www.yahoo.akadns.net [66.218.70.48]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    19 ms    22 ms    27 ms  192.168.111.1
  2    15 ms    22 ms    27 ms  10.233.56.1
  3    21 ms    20 ms    25 ms  bar02-p0-3.lsanhe4.ca.attbb.net [24.130.2.97]
  4    11 ms    17 ms    16 ms  bar01-d4-0.lsanhe4.ca.attbb.net [24.130.2.243]
  5    14 ms    17 ms    12 ms  bic01-p2-0.lsanhe3.ca.attbb.net [24.130.0.193]
  6    53 ms    13 ms    19 ms  12.119.9.5
  7    13 ms    15 ms    16 ms  tbr1-p012802.la2ca.ip.att.net [12.123.199.233]
  8    15 ms    27 ms    15 ms  gbr6-p100.la2ca.ip.att.net [12.122.11.142]
  9    17 ms    17 ms    15 ms  gar3-p370.la2ca.ip.att.net [12.123.28.198]
 10    14 ms    15 ms    14 ms  interconnect-eng.LosAngeles1.Level3.net [64.152.193.81]
 11    16 ms    17 ms    54 ms  so-5-3-0.mp1.LosAngeles1.level3.net [209.247.9.149]
 12    23 ms    26 ms    22 ms  so-3-0-0.mp2.SanJose1.Level3.net [64.159.1.130]
 13    23 ms    19 ms    40 ms  gige10-0.ipcolo3.SanJose1.Level3.net [64.159.2.41]
 14    25 ms    26 ms    26 ms  unknown.Level3.net [64.152.69.30]
 15    25 ms    24 ms    26 ms  w17.www.scd.yahoo.com [66.218.70.48]

Trace complete.

Note that the Windows Traceroute client is called "tracert".

There were 15 router hops between my home and Yahoo. .

The Traceroute client displayed the IP addresses of each router along the path and the domain name for those that had a name assigned to them. The domain names often let you know which backbone network the link is on and where the router is located. At hop 9, there is a transition between the AT&T backbone and the Level3 backbone. Hop 13 is from Los Angeles to San Jose, but it is still within the Level3 network.

As a service to the Internet community, many people run Traceroute services which will trace a route from their host to any other. For example Traceroute.Org has links to hundreds of such servers around the world. I used their service to generate the following trace from a host in Singapore to som.csudh.edu: 

Traceroute from nocolqt.singnet.com.sg to som.csudh.edu
 1  165.21.83.3 (165.21.83.3)  0.519 ms  0.532 ms  0.414 ms
 2  GE-1-1-0.bedok.singnet.com.sg (165.21.12.1)  0.931 ms  0.998 ms  0.907 ms
 3  POS2-0.tp-core1.ix.singtel.com (202.160.250.53)  1.052 ms  0.857 ms  0.896 ms
 4  203.208.172.126 (203.208.172.126)  1.256 ms  1.239 ms  1.237 ms
 5  203.208.182.82 (203.208.182.82)  176.853 ms  176.996 ms  176.843 ms
 6  203.208.168.218 (203.208.168.218)  176.994 ms  176.828 ms  176.852 ms
 7  203.208.168.186 (203.208.168.186)  176.857 ms  176.707 ms  177.184 ms
 8  bur-core-02.inet.qwest.net (205.171.213.49)  177.256 ms  177.130 ms  177.186 ms
 9  bur-edge-01.inet.qwest.net (205.171.13.54)  177.300 ms  177.780 ms  177.328 ms
10  65.119.29.94 (65.119.29.94)  179.267 ms  179.163 ms  179.123 ms
11  QANH-7513-4CNET.GE.calren2.net (137.164.12.37)  175.009 ms  174.943 ms  175.221 ms
12  DH-QAnh-ATM.CSU.net (137.145.203.69)  218.260 ms  205.582 ms  206.441 ms
13  som.csudh.edu (155.135.55.81)  178.780 ms  179.599 ms  178.646 ms
14  som.csudh.edu (155.135.55.81)  178.756 ms  178.942 ms  191.906 ms








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