How to Run a Traceroute Command in Linux

What is the Traceroute Command in Linux?

Traceroute is a network troubleshooting tool used to display the route (path) and measure transit delays of packets across an Internet Protocol (IP) network. This command allows the user to track the route taken by a packet on an IP network from the source to the destination.

Traceroute can be used on Linux systems using the command line utility. It is used to determine the route taken by packets from one host to another, providing information about the number of hops, the time taken for each hop and the IP addresses of the intermediate systems.

How does the Traceroute command work?

The traceroute command works by sending packets to the destination with increasing time-to-live (TTL) values. When a router receives a packet with a TTL value of 1, it decrements the TTL and sends an ICMP “Time Exceeded” message back to the source. By repeating this process and increasing the TTL, the route taken by the packet can be determined.

Each router along the path is shown as one hop with the round-trip time (RTT) required to reach that hop displayed. The number of hops and the RTT are useful in determining the general topology of the network, as well as any issues the packet may have encountered along the way.

How to use the Traceroute command in Linux?

Using the traceroute command in Linux is easy. All you need to do is open a terminal window and type the command followed by the IP address or hostname of the destination.

For example, the following command will trace the route from your machine to Google’s webserver:

traceroute www.google.com

The output of the command will show each hop along the route, the RTT for each hop, and the IP address of the intermediate systems.

Conclusion

The traceroute command is a powerful tool for network troubleshooting and diagnostics. It can be used to trace the route of a packet between two hosts and can be used to diagnose routing issues or performance problems.