Traceroute Tool

What is Traceroute? Traceroute maps the path that network packets take from your device to a destination host. It reveals every router (hop) along the route and measures the latency to each one.

How It Works: Traceroute sends packets with incrementing TTL (Time-To-Live) values. Each router decrements the TTL and sends back an ICMP "Time Exceeded" message when TTL reaches 0, revealing its IP address. This continues until the destination is reached or max hops is exceeded.

Probes: Multiple probes (typically 3) are sent to each hop to measure latency consistency. Green dots indicate successful probes, red dots indicate timeouts.

Interpreting Results:

• Sudden latency increases may indicate network congestion or long-distance links
• Timeouts (* * *) don't always mean problems - some routers don't respond to traceroute
• Reverse DNS names can reveal ISP/backbone provider information
• Geographic location changes in hostnames indicate international routing

Use Cases: Network troubleshooting, identifying routing problems, analyzing network topology, detecting network congestion points, measuring per-hop latency.