HELP – TRACE ROUTE Command

This utility is used for tracing the route taken from your computer to a remote computer. Your computer will send three echo requests (PING) to each router or gateway, known as (HOP) between you and your destination.  Trace is used primarily to troubleshoot Internet connections.

Enter an IP Address or Host Name in the Query Box. Then hit enter or click the Go! button.

Your results will be displayed as following:

Trace Routing... yahoo.com [204.71.177.35] with 32 bytes of data:

. . . .

06]   055 ms  141 ms  * * * ms  204.152.42.3 [border3-10bt.mclean.comstor.net]
07]   * * * ms  062 ms  053 ms  192.41.177.118 [fddi2-1-0.br1.dca.globalcenter.net]
08]   053 ms  120 ms  * * * ms  206.251.0.1 [102.atm1-0.hr1.NUQ.globalcenter.net]
09]   * * * ms  * * * ms  144 ms  204.71.177.35 [yahoo.com]

Trace Route statistics for:  204.71.177.35
    Packets: Sent = 19   Received = 16   Loss = 3  [15.79%]
  RT Times: Min = 2ms   Max = 144ms   Avg = 62.16ms

If the remote computer, router or gateway is experiencing problems or performing poorly, you may see the message:

“ * * * ms ”

This means that the device did not reply back to the request in time. Clean internet connections will usually result in very low Packet Loss and lower average RTT times.

DEFINITIONS:

Bytes = the amount of data that was sent to the remote computer. This value may be changed by clicking the more… button.

RTT = stands for Round Trip Time. This is the amount of time in milliseconds that it took for the data to be sent from your computer to the remote computer and back to yours again. The smaller the value the faster the connection.

HOP = is a router or gateway that must be gone through before reaching the destination computer or host.

ADVANCED OPTIONS:

The following values are adjustable by clicking the more… button:

Time between Packets – Time in milliseconds (1000ms = 1 second). This is delay between ping attempts.

Packet Time Out – Time in milliseconds (1000ms = 1 second). This is the amount of time that should be allowed for a remote computer to respond.

Maximum Number of Hops – This is the total number of routers / gateways or computers (HOPS) that should be analyzed before the command terminates.

Packet size in bytes – This is the amount of data that you wish to have sent to the remote server.

Resolve IP Address – Selecting this option will cause the command to translate the IP Address into host names. For example it will convert 204.71.177.35 to yahoo.com