Traceroute
How to use and perform a traceroute
What is a Traceroute?
Traceroute is a network diagnostic tool used to track the path a packet takes 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.
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.
How to use and perform a 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 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.
Fing Desktop
- Click on the Tools tab on the left sidebar
- Click the Traceroute widget under the Troubleshoot your network heading
- In the search bar, enter a website address or choose a device on your network from the dropdown list
Fing Mobile App
- Click Tools on the bottom toolbar
- Scroll down and click Trace route under the heading Troubleshoot your network
- 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 did not work
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 needs to be implemented (including tcp). This is not yet provided by Fing. These methods try to use particular protocol and source/destination ports in order to bypass firewalls.
Need Help?
Click the Submit a request button at the top right of the page