TRACEROUTE
A basic TCP / IP tool for checking your route to a
host.
Tracert.exe (which is the DOS version of the Unix "traceroute"
tool) is also found in your C:\WINDOWS directory. Like Ping, tracert
uses ICMP packets to furnish you with some information about your
connection. Specifically, tracert reports the route that your packets
take in getting to the host you're trying to reach. It lists each host,
or gateway, you have to pass, and shows you three Ping times to each of
those hosts. The distance between one host and the next is called a
"hop."
Tracert output looks like this:
C:\>tracert www.yahoo.com
Tracing route to www.yahoo.com [204.71.200.66]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <10 ms <10 ms <10 ms ais-gw.advintsol.com [198.182.85.1]
2 <10 ms 16 ms 31 ms S3-3.16.Internet-GW.ACES.NET [199.33.243.209]
3 219 ms 94 ms 109 ms sl-gw10-ana-3-0.sprintlink.net [144.228.173.9]
4 16 ms 15 ms 32 ms sl-bb21-ana-0-3.sprintlink.net [144.232.1.49]
5 32 ms 31 ms 31 ms sl-bb21-stk-6-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.8.89]
6 31 ms 31 ms 32 ms sl-gw11-stk-0-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.4.82]
7 266 ms 31 ms 47 ms isi-border2-hssi4-0-0-0-T3.sprintlink.net
[144.228.147.10]
8 47 ms 31 ms 47 ms pos4-2-155M.cr1.SNV.globalcenter.net
[206.132.150.25]
9 156 ms 212 ms 172 ms pos5-0-0-155M.hr1.SNV.globalcenter.net
[206.251.0.105]
10 31 ms 31 ms 47 ms www1.yahoo.com [204.71.200.66]
Trace complete.
The first column is the hop number. The next three columns show Ping
times between you and that particular host. The last column shows the
name of that server, or gateway, and its IP address.
You should always run tracert a couple of times, as the first iteration
usually reports artificially long Ping times. If you run tracert and
your average Ping times for any given hop are greater than 450ms, you
might experience lags, or delays in your connection. If you run tracert
a few times, and are seeing Ping times that are greater than 1000ms (one
full second), or get "asterisks" ( * ) you are almost certain
to experience lags or warps, and may experience dumps or disconnects.
This is a congestion problem somewhere in your connection. That
congestion might be on your ISP's network, or anywhere in the Internet
between your computer and our servers. Congestion doesn't necessarily
mean a bad gateway, or a network problem. It simply means more people
are moving data than the Internet can support at that particular
instant. Usually, such problems are transient and clear themselves
up.
SUMMARY: Tracert, like Ping, can tell you when your network connection
is congested. However, it cannot pinpoint the exact point of congestion
with enough certainty to take action or place blame. Just like Ping, the
results reported by tracert may or may not present a true picture of how
your regular TCP connection is performing, so be wary of treating the
results as if they were gospel.
NeoTrace v2.02 [1.1M] W9x/NT US$30
http://software.mcafee.com/centers/download/default.asp
http://www.neoworx.com
Your computer is sitting in front of you. When you're surfing the
Web, you're connecting with other computers across the globe. Have
you ever wondered (or needed to know) how information gets from
one place to another via the Internet? You can type "TRACERT"
(then a target) at the command prompt, but visual feedback will be
infinitely easier to interpret. Enter NeoTrace: a "high-speed,
GRAPHICAL traceroute with integrated whois and ping
functionality." Easy, functional, and kinda fun!