Tracert Command

A command issued from a windowed DOS prompt which shows the route taken to a site. Useful to isolate bottlenecks

For example, to find out how busy the Netscape server is, I enter the following command:

D:\ >tracert home.netscape.com

The information returned by tracert is:

Tracing route to www14.netscape.com [198.95.249.78]

1 * * * Request timed out.

2 * * * Request timed out.

3 163 ms 152 ms 164 ms core-serial4-0.mv.best.net [205.149.170.41]

4 167 ms 175 ms 173 ms mae-west2.agis.net [198.32.136.16]

5 161 ms 169 ms 157 ms mae-west.SanFrancisco.mci.net [198.32.136.12]

6 187 ms 159 ms 216 ms -hssi3-0.SanFrancisco.mci.net [204.70.1.205]

7 181 ms 212 ms 190 ms borderx2-fddi-0.Seattle.mci.net [204.70.3.164]

8 170 ms 166 ms 150 ms netscape-(mcom)-ds3.SanFrancisco.mci.net [204.70

.158.122]

9 179 ms 159 ms 174 ms www14.netscape.com [198.95.249.78]

Note: ms stands for milliseconds, or thousands of a second.

Step 1: Means exactly what it says

Step 3: Entered the service provider

Step 5: Entered the MCI backbone in San Francisco

Step 7: It's not clear why we made a trip to Seattle only to return to SF

Step 9: Completed