Trace-route tool

What is "trace Route"? 

Trace-route is a network diagnostic tool which is used to track the path taken by a packet from source to destination in real-time. It reports the IP addresses of all the routers/links it pinged in between these source and destination. The journey from one links/router to another is known as a hop. The information that travels along the trace-route is known as a packet.

Trace-route 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 milli-seconds.

How can I use and perform a trace route?

Trace-route is a very useful tool for finding the delay in response and all the routing loops(hops) present. It also helps to locate any points of failure found while travelling on route to specific destination.

For example, if your website is slow to load then you might use trace-route to discover the cause. Broadband customers might also use trace-route if they are unable to connect to certain websites or their connection to the Internet is slow.

To use the trace-route tool on Fing Desktop:

• Click on the Tools tab
• Select the Trace-route feature from the list

• Using the Search bar, you can either enter a Website address or you can choose the devices on your network from dropdown list.

See below, an example of a successful trace-route:

The Trace Route didn't work

A likely reason for the trace-route not working is that by default Window’s tracert uses ICMP.

In some network environments the traditional trace-route methods cannot be always applicable, because of widespread use of firewalls. Such firewalls filter the “unlikely” UDP ports, or even ICMP echoes.

To resolve this, some additional trace-routing methods needs to be implemented (including tcp) which is not yet provided by Fing. Such methods try to use particular protocol and source/destination port, in order to bypass firewalls (to be seen by firewalls just as a start of allowed type of a network session).

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