How to use Trace route command

How to use Trace route command

Trace route command is one of the important network diagnostic tool which helps the administrators to find whether the information (Data Packets) have been sent from one system to another system over the network. This command also informs about the network path and the router details from where the packets have been travelled and in which routers it has passed through to reach the destination.

Syntax of the trace route command is as follows:

Cmd:>tracert ipaddress or domain name

Where tracert ? command used for trace route
Ipaddress ? System ip address to be tested

Open the command prompt (Start-> Run and then type cmd and press enter.) Now let's see the example for the domain google.com

C:\>tracert google.com

Tracing route to google.com [209.85.147.104]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 10.13.170.3
2 3 ms <1 ms <1 ms 158.234.204.1
3 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 121.242.18.65.static-chennai.vsnl.net.in [121.242.18.65]
4 54 ms 8 ms 11 ms 121.243.112.117
5 4 ms 4 ms 2 ms illchn-static-203.199.247.238.vsnl.net.in [203.199.247.238]
6 4 ms 4 ms 3 ms illchn-static-203.199.247.238.vsnl.net.in [203.199.247.238]
7 78 ms 73 ms 2 ms 172.31.35.97
8 6 ms 2 ms 6 ms 121.240.1.46
9 6 ms 29 ms 103 ms 216.239.43.142
10 36 ms 35 ms 65 ms 66.249.94.72
11 174 ms 220 ms 145 ms 72.14.232.115
12 202 ms 200 ms 197 ms 72.14.236.21
13 294 ms 283 ms 275 ms 66.249.94.197
14 257 ms 256 ms 251 ms 216.239.43.81
15 284 ms 278 ms 277 ms 216.239.46.214
16 345 ms 354 ms 377 ms 209.85.250.55
17 366 ms 369 ms 361 ms 66.249.95.173
18 368 ms 355 ms 358 ms 209.85.249.29
19 404 ms 377 ms 362 ms 216.239.46.253
20 372 ms 365 ms 354 ms bru01m01-in-f104.1e100.net [209.85.147.104]

Trace complete.

The above is the result when we use the trace route command for the domain google.com. Initially it displays the message for tracing the domain google.com and displays IP address of that domain. Next it displays the information about the router the data passes to reach its destination.

The trace route command is very useful to identify exactly where the problem occurs and we can able to isolate the issue and rectify with the particular area. Also we can use both the Ping and tracert command for testing purpose and then we can easily isolate the issue. Once the trace has been completed you will get the message as Trace Complete at the end of the execution of this command.

Switches:

Tracert command uses the following switches:

-d Do not resolve addresses to hostnames.
-h maximum_hops Maximum number of hops to search for target.
-j host-list Loose source route along host-list.
-w timeout Wait timeout milliseconds for each reply.

Generally this command traces for the maximum of 30 hops.