Traceroute:-
Traceroute
is a computer network diagnostics tool. It’s used for displaying the route and
delays of packets in an IP network. Traceroute is a command-line interface tool
and available in many operation system, like Windows, MACOS, Linux, FreeBSD.
Traceroute also uses ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) message, but
unlike ping it identifies every router in a path taken by the packets.
Traceroute is useful for troubleshoot network because it can help identify
where exactly the problem is.
Traceroute Works:-
Traceroute
sends a series of ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) echo request packets
to destination. First series of message has a TTL (Time to Live) parameter set
to 1, which means that the first router in a path will discard the packet and
send an ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) Time Exceeded message. TTL
(Time to Live) is then increased by one until the destination host is reached
and an ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) echo reply message is received.
Main host can then use received ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol)
message to identify all routers in a path. The TTL (Time to Live) vale also
known as hop limit.
The
traceroute command on windows is named Tracert. On UNIX like system and IOS
traceroute it is invoked using the traceroute command.
Example of use
“Tracert command” in windows
In this
example you can see that the traceroute command has listed the IP address of
the routers in the path.