Tools - Traceroute

Traceroute 

Traceroute is a network diagnostic tool used to track a packet path from source to destination in real time. Traceroute reports the IP addresses of all the routers/links it pings between the source and destination. The journey from one link/router to another is called a hop. The information that travels along the traceroute is called a packet.

Benefits of Traceroute

A traceroute can find the delay in response and all the routing loops (hops) present. A traceroute also helps to find any points of failure found while travelling on route to a specific destination. For example, if your website is slow to load then you can use traceroute to discover the cause. Broadband customers may also use traceroute if they are unable to connect to certain websites or their connection to the Internet is slow.

A traceroute also records the time taken for each hop the packet makes during its route to the destination. The amount of time it takes to make a hop is measured in milliseconds. 

Perform a Traceroute on Fing Desktop

1. From the left navigation menu, select Tools > Start Traceroute to display the Traceroute window.
2. In the searchbox at the top of the window, enter the destination URL for the Trace, for example, www.apple.com.
3. Click Start to begin the Traceroute.  The window displays the list of hops (stops on the route) and associated information including, IP address, type of stop, and time in milliseconds between stops.

Perform a Traceroute Using Fing Mobile App or Fing Mobile Controlled Agent or Monitoring Unit

1. Click Tools on the bottom toolbar
2. Scroll down and click Trace route under the heading Troubleshoot your network
3. In the search bar, enter a website address or choose a device on your network from the dropdown list and click the blue Traceroute button.  The Traceroute window is displayed showing the hops from your network to the specified destination.

Traceroute Not Working

A likely reason the traceroute did not work is that Window's tracert uses ICMP by default.

In some network environments, the traditional traceroute methods are not always applicable because of widespread use of firewalls. Such firewalls filter the 'unlikely' UDP ports, or even ICMP echoes. To resolve this, some additional tracerouting methods need to be implemented (including tcp). These methods try to use particular protocol and source/destination ports in order to bypass firewalls.