Perform an IP trace with MTR, an advanced traceroute tool that uses multiple ICMP pings to test the connectivity to each hop in the network. Discover the the network path between our Linode server to any IP address in the world. The results are displayed in a table and are also mapped on google maps for visual representation.

What is an IP Trace?

IP Trace is a term used to describe tracing the path across an IP network. It also is commonly refered to by the name of the tools used to perform the trace; typically traceroute on Linux based systems and tracert on Windows operating systems. There are also variations on these such as tcptraceroute. The tools all perform a similar function but have different capabilities or methods for performing the trace.

Why would I run a Traceroute?

A popular reason one might perform a traceroute is for interest sake. It is a good way to see the path your network connection is taking as it traverses the globe. However, the most common reason is its use by networking and computer professionals to diagnose problems in a network path. As the traceroute can pin point routers with high response times, possibly indicating network congestion or other problems.

What techniques are used to measure the IP Path?

Packets are sent across the network and something called a TTL (time to live) is measured, as the packets reach hops (router) in the network the TTL is incremented. The packets are usually ICMP or UDP packets; another version uses the TCP protocol. One advantage of using the different protocols is on some networks a router or firewall may block the packets, thereby giving you an incomplete path across the network. By using different protocols you may be able to get past some of the systems that are blocking the other types of packets. TCP Traceroute is popular as it can be used to trace a path to a TCP service that has to have an open port for that service to be operational. For example a webserver on port 80 or a mail server on port 25.

GeoIP Location Finding of a network path

You will note in tool we have hosted here at hackertarget.com we include a map of the IP trace as it traverses the world. This is done by looking up each responding router’s IP address against GeoIP based services. These services are not always reliable; therefore always take the mapping data with a grain of salt and beware of strange results that bounce back and forth.

Understand the IP Trace Results

Each traceroute mapped with our tool will be displayed in the table below and plotted onto a map. Note that hops that do not respond are not included in the results.

Host Name / IP Address
Responding hops are resolved in DNS, if the have a PTR record this is included in the table, those with no record will show the IP Address.

ISP and Country
These details are determined by using the excellent service over at Team Cymru for determing the netblock owner and country location of a register IPv4 address.

Packet Loss and Response Times
As is pretty obvious these are the results from the traceroute. The packet loss can show if packets are being dropped either along the path or at the router and the response time shows the latency.

Total Distance
This is a fun little result that shows the total distance between our server and the destination. It determines the distance by consulting the hops mapped on the Google maps application and adding the total distance (in a straight) line between all the hops that responded. Try to find the longest distance of a trace; we have tried servers located in Siberia, Northern China and Antarctica for some good results.