A traceroute is a tool that is used to see the route that a data packet takes from one device on the internet to another.
It provides insight into the route that traffic takes and can be used to troubleshoot problems on the network, such as packet loss. This can be useful if you want to know where a delay on the network is or if you want to see which routers and servers the traffic passes through on its way to its destination. For example, a traceroute might look like this:
Keys: Help Display mode Restart statistics Order of fields quit
Packets Pings
Host Loss% Snt Last Avg Best Wrst StDev
1. gw.ams4.transip.net 0.0% 20 0.6 7.7 0.6 62.6 13.4
2. l5.f2.ams4.transip.net 0.0% 20 1.6 17.9 1.6 224.6 48.9
3. s2.r1.ams0.transip.net 0.0% 20 0.4 1.0 0.4 5.8 1.3
4. r1-a0.e1.ams0.transip.net 0.0% 20 0.8 0.6 0.5 0.8 0.1
5. core1.ams.net.google.com 0.0% 20 1.3 2.3 0.9 12.2 2.8
6. 2001:4860:0:f8a::1 0.0% 20 1.2 1.3 1.1 2.3 0.3
7. 2001:4860:0:1::611b 0.0% 20 1.1 1.1 1.0 1.3 0.1
8. ams15s48-in-x0e.1e100.net 0.0% 20 1.3 1.2 1.0 1.4 0.1
Within Linux, the 'My TraceRoute' (MTR) software is used to perform a traceroute, see our tutorial 'Measuring Packet Loss in Linux with a traceroute/mtr'. For Windows, the standard 'tracert' tool is used, see our guide 'Measuring Packet Loss in Windows with WinMTR'.