Traceroute is an application that traces the path data takes from one computer to another. Basically a traceroute is a map that shows what stops or locations that data must pass through in order to go from one computer to another.
To be effective troubleshooting tool, the traceroute needs to be run during a time when the problem is occurring, from a computer that is experiencing the problem.
How do I run a traceroute?
To Run a Traceroute in Windows:
In Windows 98 or ME, Go to “Start” > “Run”. Type “command” and press the “Enter” key.
In Windows 2000, XP, or Vista, go to “Start” > “Run” and type “cmd” and press the “Enter” key.
This will bring up a black command prompt window. It will have a line that looks like this:
C:\Documents and Settings\>
with a cursor blinking next to the “>” symbol.
To run the traceroute, type:
tracert yourdomain.com
Where “yourdomain.com” is the name of the server that you are having difficulty connecting to. The traceroute process may take only a few seconds or a few minutes. Typically, the farther you are away, geographically, from your target location, the longer the trace will take.
If you have difficulty copying the traceroute information, or if it runs off the screen, you can instead type:
tracert yourdomain.name > C:\trace.txt
This would write the command results to a text file named trace.txt in the root of your C: drive.
To Run a Traceroute on a Mac:
If you have OS X, you can use the built-in network tools. Double-click the Hard Drive icon > Applications folder > Utilities folder > Network Utility program. Select the Traceroute tab and enter the hostname or domain name.
Mac OS X users can also take advantage of the the terminal that is built in to the system. Inside the same Utilities folder described above, open the program labeled Terminal. Once inside the terminal application type in the command ‘traceroute domain.com’. Be sure to leave out the quotation marks and substitute the target server name or IP address instead of domain.com
If you have an older Macintosh, you may need to acquire third party software utility software. Go to http://www.tucows.com and do a search for “Trace” on “Macintosh”. Programs like the ‘DNS Expert Professional’ will allow you to run a “trace route”. Then send us the results for analysis.
To Run a Traceroute on Linux or UNIX:
At the command line, type:
traceroute yourdomain.com
FOR All SYSTEMS:
Please note that yourdomain.com should be replaced with the site is not working for you.
WHAT DOES THE TRACEROUTE SHOW YOU?
Let’s take a few sample traceroute outputs. The first is a successful trace:
traceroute msu.edu
traceroute to msu.edu (35.8.10.134), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 lw-dc2-hsrp-vlan132.rtr.liquidweb.com (67.43.8.129) 1.330 ms 1.420 ms 1.554 ms
2 lw-dc2-core4-po2.rtr.liquidweb.com (209.59.157.131) 1.092 ms 1.311 ms 1.451 ms
3 lw-dc1-core1-ge3-5.rtr.liquidweb.com (209.59.157.93) 1.596 ms 1.897 ms 2.209 ms
4 lw-dc1-border3-ge4.rtr.liquidweb.com (209.59.157.29) 1.657 ms 1.748 ms 1.894 ms
5 12.116.80.97 (12.116.80.97) 4.748 ms 5.382 ms 5.453 ms
6 cr81.dtrmi.ip.att.net (12.122.102.2) 12.893 ms 12.035 ms 11.043 ms
7 cr1.cgcil.ip.att.net (12.123.139.157) 11.509 ms 11.615 ms 11.769 ms
8 12.123.7.33 (12.123.7.33) 10.645 ms 10.711 ms 10.760 ms
9 12.90.96.6 (12.90.96.6) 9.473 ms 9.537 ms 9.605 ms
10 xe-0-0-0x14.msu6.mich.net (198.108.22.10) 15.047 ms 14.458 ms 14.487 ms
11 192.122.183.227 (192.122.183.227) 16.976 ms 20.066 ms 20.137 ms
12 cc-t1-ge1-23.net.msu.edu (35.9.101.209) 20.228 ms 20.432 ms 20.312 ms
13 www.msu.edu (35.8.10.134) 16.856 ms 17.071 ms 16.341 ms
It looks like gibberish, right? But it’s actually fairly easy to understand. After the traceroute command, the program tells you what it’s doing;
- It’s looked up the domain msu.edu,
- It found msu.edu on the IP address of 35.8.10.134
- Now it will now attempt to find its way there.
It will only be able to attempt 30 “hops” (stops along the way, or connections to routers) and it will send a packet of 40 bytes.
The numbers at the far left are the number of the hop, followed by the name and/or IP address of the router that hop is going through. You can see our trace started within the Liquid Web network, progressed through AT&T and found its way to msu.edu.
The set of three numbers on the right side of the lines indicate the amount of time, in milliseconds, it took for that hop to complete. Traceroute performs each hop three times.
In this example there are no asterisks (which indicate packet loss) and no inordinately long delays. If your trace to the server looks like this, you’re in good shape in terms of network connectivity.
Now, let’s look at a traceroute that ends without reaching its destination:
traceroute liquidweb.com
traceroute to liquidweb.com (209.59.139.21), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 lw-dc2-hsrp-vlan132.rtr.liquidweb.com (67.43.8.129) 0.947 ms 1.028 ms 1.101 ms
2 lw-dc2-core4-po2.rtr.liquidweb.com (209.59.157.131) 1.275 ms 1.308 ms 1.385 ms
3 lw-dc1-core1-ge3-5.rtr.liquidweb.com (209.59.157.93) 1.849 ms 1.921 ms 1.980 ms
4 lw-dc1-dist1-ge1.rtr.liquidweb.com (209.59.157.2) 92.082 ms 92.155 ms 92.347 ms
5 * * *
6 * * *
7 * * *
8 * * *
[truncated]
Our trace to liquidweb.com failed because we ran it from our internal network – liquidweb.com is not actually down. It’s just a nice, short example of what a failed trace looks like.
You can see on the fifth hop we have nothing but packet loss. The traceroute continued for the full 30 hops, each reporting * * * as it went. If your trace to the server has many asterisks like this one, that means that the connection was not able to be completed. This could be for a variety of reasons including:
- A network outage
- High amounts of traffic causing network congestion
- A firewall dropping traffic from your IP
If you see these asterisks once you are inside Liquid Web’s network, there may be no need to worry. VPS customers frequently are not able to trace to their instance on the parent server.
Having traceroute’s output ready is an excellent way to help us help you if you are experiencing network issues.
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Liquid Web’s Heroic Support is always available to assist customers with this or any other issue. If you need our assistance please contact us:
Toll Free 1.800.580.4985
International 517.322.0434
support@liquidweb.com
https://manage.liquidweb.com/
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