How to Run a Traceroute

Running a Traceroute

Traceroute is a program available on most computers that shows you the path (route) between your computer and a server. It will indicate all the intermediate routers (points) your connection passes through to reach a server. It’s a helpful tool to determine if your connection to a specific server is problematic, and where the problem lies. Alternatively, run a MTR.

Running a traceroute is different for each Operating System. Here are the steps for the most common Operating Systems:

Windows XP:

  1. Click ‘Start’
  2. Select ‘Run’
  3. In the Run dialog box next to ‘Open’ type: cmd
  4. Click ‘OK’ or press Enter. A Command Prompt window should open
  5. In the Command Prompt type, ‘tracert’ and the domain name or IP address, e.g. tracert xneelo.co.za or tracert 41.203.23.117

Windows Vista or Windows 7:

  1. Click ‘Start’
  2. In the ‘Start Search’ box type: cmd
  3. Click the search icon (that little magnifying glass) or press Enter. The command prompt should open.
  4. In command prompt, type ‘tracert’ and the domain name or IP address, e.g. tracert xneelo.co.za or tracert 41.203.23.117

Windows 8:

  1. Open the Charm Bar by moving your mouse cursor to the top-right of the screen. If you are using a touch screen open the Charm Bar by swiping from the right-hand side of the screen
  2. Select ‘Search’
  3. In the ‘Search box’ type: run
  4. Select ‘Run’ then type: cmd
  5. Select ‘OK’
  6. In command prompt, type ‘tracert’ and the domain name or IP address, e.g. tracert xneelo.co.za or tracert 41.203.23.117

Apple Mac OS X:

  1. Go to ‘Finder’
  2. Open the ‘Applications’ folder
  3. Click ‘Utilities’
  4. Select or double click ‘Terminal’
  5. In Terminal type ‘traceroute’ and the domain name or IP address, e.g. traceroute xneelo.co.za or traceroute 41.203.23.117

Linux:

  1. Open ‘Terminal’
  2. In Terminal type ‘traceroute’ and the domain name or IP address, e.g. traceroute xneelo.co.za or traceroute 41.203.23.117

Example of What your Traceroute will look like:

Tracing route to xneelo.co.za [41.203.23.117] over a maximum of 30 hops:
 1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.1.1
 2 11 ms 17 ms 14 ms 12-345-678-9.your-isp.com [12.345.678.9]
 3 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms example.router-1.your-isp.com [123.45.67.8]
 4 11 ms 10 ms 11 ms 987-65-4-3.example.your-isp.com [987.65.4.3]
 5 13 ms 15 ms 13 ms another-router-2.your-isp.com [23.456.78.910]
 6 24 ms 11 ms 13 ms another-router-3.your-isp.com [345.5.67.8]
 7 12 ms 12 ms 11 ms another-router-4.your-isp.com [45.678.910.11]
 8 12 ms 11 ms 12 ms xneelo-upstream-provider-peering-point
 9 43 ms 41 ms 40 ms xneelo-upstream-provider-router
 10 41 ms 40 ms 40 ms xneelo-upstream-provider-router
 11 44 ms 40 ms 41 ms xneelo-upstream-provider-router
 12 41 ms 48 ms 39 ms xneelo-upstream-provider-router
 13 44 ms 40 ms 39 ms xneelo-core-access
 14 42 ms 40 ms 40 ms xneelo-row-access
 15 40 ms 40 ms 48 ms xneelo.co.za [41.203.23.117]
 Trace complete.

Examine your Traceroute Results

  • There are 15 ‘hops’ with 3 time tests (probes) in each; reporting how long (in milliseconds i.e. ms) it took to get to that point and return
  • Each ‘hop’ shows the IP address of the router (a device used for routing internet traffic) and/or its name
  • If no response is received from a router, the milliseconds are replaced by an asterisk (*). This could mean that that specific hop has purposely been configured to not respond to traceroute ‘probes’
  • Run ‘Traceroute’ several times, as the first iteration usually reports artificially long ping times
  • Hops 1 through to 7 mainly show the responses on routes taken by your Internet Service Provider (ISP).
  • Hops 8 to 12 show the responses from xneelo’s current upstream provider
  • The remainder of the hops show the responses from the internal xneelo network
  • When you interpret the results and are seeing response times that are greater than 100 ms(milliseconds) on local connections and 500 ms on international connections, or you see asterisks you are almost certain to experience slowness and/or connection issues

If you are unsure about how to interpret the traceroute results, kindly send the complete results to support@xneelo.com so that we may assist you with the interpretation.

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