Visual Traceroute
A traceroute is a computer networking tool that is designed to show the route taken by information packets across a network. Visual traceroute tools are available on almost all UNIX based operating systems. Some of them may have different names like Tracepath for new Linux operating systems and Tracert for Microsoft Windows. Older versions of Windows like Windows NT also have a program called PathPing which provides similar functions.
A traceroute tracks internet packages by increasing their ‘living’ value each time a batch of packets is sent. When a packet with a TTL (time-to-live) value reaches the host, it will be discarded and an ICMP packet will be sent back to show that the packet’s time has exceeded. If the packet is not returned in the expected time, then an asterisk or star is printed. Traceroutes may not always list the real origin of the packet. It will indicate the beginning host is at one hop, the second at two hops, and so on. But it is not guaranteed that all packets use the same route.
On modern Unix-based operating systems, all traceroute utilities use UDP data-grams by default with the destination ports numbered between 33434 to 33534. These utilities will usually have an option where a user can switch to an ICMP echo request, just like the Tracert utility for windows. If your computer has a firewall but you want the traceroute to run from both machines (Windows and UNIX systems), then you will need to grant both protocols access through your firewall.
Some traceroute programs use TCP packets like layer four traceroute or TCPtraceroute. PathPing was discontinued after Windows NT but it had useful features that combined traceroute and ping functions. Implementations with traceroute are included in all the major operating systems like Windows, Mac OS, Linux, DragonFly BSD, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD.
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