Traceroute

Document revision 1.1 (31-Jan-2003)
This document applies to MikroTik RouterOS v2.7

Table of Contents
Summary
Specifications
Related Documents
Description
The Traceroute Command

Summary

Traceroute determines how packets are being routed to a particular host

Specifications

Packages required : system
License required : Any
Home menu level : /tool
Standards and Technologies : ICMP (RFC792), UDP(RFC768, Traceroute (RFC2925)
Hardware usage : not significant

Traceroute is a TCP/IP protocol-based utility, which allows user to determine how packets are being routed to a particular host. Traceroute works by increasing the time-to-live value of packets and seeing how far they get until they reach the given destination; thus, a lengthening trail of hosts passed through is built up.

Traceroute shows the number of hops to the given host address of every passed gateway. Traceroute utility sends packets three times to each passed gateway so it shows three timeout values for each gateway in ms.

The Traceroute Command

Command name : /tool traceroute

Property Description

(IP address) - IP address of the host you are tracing route to
port (integer: 0..65535) - UDP port number
protocol (UDP | ICMP) - type of protocol to use. If one fails (for example, it is blocked by a firewall) try the other
size (integer: 28..1500, default: 64) - packet size in bytes
timeout (time: 1s..8s, default: 1s) - response waiting timeout, i.e. delay between messages
tos (integer: 0..255, default: 0) - Type Of Service - parameter of IP packet
use-dns (yes | no, default: no) - specifies whether to use DNS server, which can be set in /ip dns menu

Notes

Traceroute session may be stopped by pressing [Ctrl]+[C].

Example

To trace the route to 216.239.39.101 host using ICMP protocol with packet size of 64 bytes, setting ToS field to 8 and extending the timeout to 4 seconds:

[admin@MikroTik] tool> traceroute 216.239.39.101 protocol=icmp size=64 tos=8 timeout=4s
     ADDRESS					STATUS
   1 159.148.60.227	  3ms	   3ms	    3ms
   2 195.13.173.221	 80ms	 169ms	   14ms
   3 195.13.173.28	  6ms	   4ms	    4ms
   4 195.158.240.21	111ms	 110ms	  110ms
   5 213.174.71.49	124ms	 120ms	  129ms
   6 213.174.71.134	139ms	 146ms	  135ms
   7 213.174.70.245	132ms	 131ms	  136ms
   8 213.174.70.58	211ms	 215ms	  215ms
   9 195.158.229.130	225ms	 239ms	     0s
  10 216.32.223.114	283ms	 269ms	  281ms
  11 216.32.132.14	267ms	 260ms	  266ms
  12 209.185.9.102	296ms	 296ms	  290ms
  13 216.109.66.1	288ms	 297ms	  294ms
  14 216.109.66.90	297ms	 317ms	  319ms
  15 216.239.47.66	137ms	 136ms	  134ms
  16 216.239.47.46	135ms	 134ms	  134ms
  17 216.239.39.101	134ms	 134ms	  135ms
[admin@MikroTik] tool>