NAME
traceroute
,
traceroute6
—
print the route packets take to network
host
SYNOPSIS
traceroute |
[-AcDdIlnSvx ] [-f
first_ttl] [-g
gateway_addr] [-m
max_ttl] [-P
proto] [-p
port] [-q
nqueries] [-s
src_addr] [-t
toskeyword] [-V
rtable] [-w
waittime] host
[datalen] |
traceroute6 |
[-AcDdIlnSv ] [-f
first_hop] [-m
max_hop] [-p
port] [-q
nqueries] [-s
src_addr] [-V
rtable] [-w
waittime] host
[datalen] |
DESCRIPTION
The Internet is a large and complex aggregation of network
hardware, connected together by gateways. Tracking the route packets follow
(or finding the miscreant gateway that's discarding packets) can be
difficult. traceroute
utilizes the IPv4 protocol
time to live (TTL) field and attempts to elicit an ICMP
TIME_EXCEEDED
response from each gateway along the
path to some host. traceroute6
does the same for the
IPv6 protocol, instead using hop limits and ICMPv6
TIME_EXCEEDED
responses.
The only mandatory parameter is the destination host name or IP number. The default probe datagram length is 40 bytes for IPv4 UDP and 60 bytes for ICMP, IPv6 UDP and ICMP6. This may be increased by datalen bytes.
The options are as follows:
-A
- Look up the AS number for each hop address. Uses the DNS service described at http://www.team-cymru.org/Services/ip-to-asn.html.
-c
- Do not increment the destination port number in successive UDP packets.
Rather, all UDP packets will have the same destination port, as set via
the
-p
flag (or 33434 if none is specified). -D
- Dump the packet data to standard error before transmitting it.
-d
- Turn on socket-level debugging.
-f
first_ttl- Set the first TTL or hop limit used in outgoing probe packets. The effect
is that the first first_ttl - 1 hosts will be skipped in the output of
traceroute
. The default value is 1 (skip no hosts). -g
gateway_addr- Add gateway_addr to the list of addresses in the IP Loose Source Record Route (LSRR) option. If no gateways are specified, the LSRR option is omitted. This option is not available for IPv6.
-I
- Use ICMP or ICMP6 ECHO instead of UDP datagrams.
-l
- Display the TTL or hop limit value of the returned packet. This is useful for checking for asymmetric routing.
-m
max_ttl- Set the maximum TTL or hop limit. The default is the value of the system's
net.inet.ip.ttl
ornet.inet6.ip6.hlim
MIB variable, which defaults to 64. -n
- Print hop addresses numerically rather than symbolically and numerically (saves a nameserver address-to-name lookup for each gateway found on the path).
-P
proto- Change the protocol being used from UDP to a numeric protocol or a name as specified in /etc/protocols. This will not work reliably for most protocols. If set to 1 (ICMP), then ICMP Echo Request messages will be used (same as ping(8)). This option is not available for IPv6.
-p
port- Set the base UDP port number used in probes (default
is 33434).
traceroute
hopes that nothing is listening on UDP ports base to base+nhops*nqueries-1 at the destination host (so an ICMPPORT_UNREACHABLE
message will be returned to terminate the route tracing). If something is listening on a port in the default range, this option can be used to pick an unused port range. -q
nqueries- Set the number of probes per TTL to nqueries (default is three probes).
-S
- Print how many probes were not answered for each hop.
-s
src_addr- Use the following IP address (which must be given as an IP number, not a hostname) as the source address in outgoing probe packets. On hosts with more than one IP address, this option can be used to force the source address to be something other than the IP address of the interface the probe packet is sent on. If the IP address is not one of this machine's interface addresses and the user is not the superuser, an error is returned and nothing is sent.
-t
toskeyword- Set the
type-of-service
in probe packets to the following value (default zero). The value may be
one of critical, inetcontrol,
lowdelay, netcontrol,
throughput, reliability, or
one of the DiffServ Code Points: ef,
af11 ... af43, cs0 ... cs7; or
a number in either hex or decimal. This option can be used to see if
different types-of-service result in different paths. If this option is
used, changes to the type-of-service in the returned packets are
displayed. (If you are not running a 4.3BSD-Tahoe
or later system, this may be academic since the normal network services
like telnet and ftp don't let you control the
TOS
). Not all values ofTOS
are legal or meaningful - see the IP spec for definitions. Useful values are probably lowdelay and throughput. This option is not available for IPv6. -V
rtable- Set the routing table to be used.
-v
- Verbose output. Received ICMP packets other than
TIME_EXCEEDED
andUNREACHABLE
s are listed. -w
waittime- Set the time (in seconds) to wait for a response to a probe (default 5).
-x
- Print the ICMP extended headers if available. This option is not available for IPv6.
This program attempts to trace the route an IP packet would follow
to some internet host by launching UDP probe packets with a small TTL then
listening for an ICMP "time exceeded" reply from a gateway. We
start out probes with a TTL of one and increase by one until we get an ICMP
"port unreachable" (which means we got to "host") or hit
a max (which defaults to 64 hops and can be changed with the
-m
flag). Three probes (changed with
-q
flag) are sent at each TTL setting and a line is
printed showing the TTL, address of the gateway and round trip time of each
probe. If the probe answers come from different gateways, the address of
each responding system will be printed. If there is no response within a 5
second timeout interval (changed with the -w
flag),
a "*" is printed for that probe.
We don't want the destination host to process the UDP probe
packets so the destination port is set to an unlikely value (if some clod on
the destination is using that value, it can be changed with the
-p
flag).
A sample use and output might be:
$ traceroute nis.nsf.net. traceroute to nis.nsf.net (35.1.1.48), 64 hops max, 56 byte packet 1 helios.ee.lbl.gov (128.3.112.1) 19 ms 19 ms 0 ms 2 lilac-dmc.Berkeley.EDU (128.32.216.1) 39 ms 39 ms 19 ms 3 lilac-dmc.Berkeley.EDU (128.32.216.1) 39 ms 39 ms 19 ms 4 ccngw-ner-cc.Berkeley.EDU (128.32.136.23) 39 ms 40 ms 39 ms 5 ccn-nerif22.Berkeley.EDU (128.32.168.22) 39 ms 39 ms 39 ms 6 128.32.197.4 (128.32.197.4) 40 ms 59 ms 59 ms 7 131.119.2.5 (131.119.2.5) 59 ms 59 ms 59 ms 8 129.140.70.13 (129.140.70.13) 99 ms 99 ms 80 ms 9 129.140.71.6 (129.140.71.6) 139 ms 239 ms 319 ms 10 129.140.81.7 (129.140.81.7) 220 ms 199 ms 199 ms 11 nic.merit.edu (35.1.1.48) 239 ms 239 ms 239 ms
Note that lines 2 & 3 are the same. This is due to a buggy kernel on the 2nd hop system - lbl-csam.arpa - that forwards packets with a zero TTL (a bug in the distributed version of 4.3BSD). Note that you have to guess what path the packets are taking cross-country since the NSFNET (129.140) doesn't supply address-to-name translations for its NSSes.
A more interesting example is:
$ traceroute allspice.lcs.mit.edu. traceroute to allspice.lcs.mit.edu (18.26.0.115), 64 hops max 1 helios.ee.lbl.gov (128.3.112.1) 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms 2 lilac-dmc.Berkeley.EDU (128.32.216.1) 19 ms 19 ms 19 ms 3 lilac-dmc.Berkeley.EDU (128.32.216.1) 39 ms 19 ms 19 ms 4 ccngw-ner-cc.Berkeley.EDU (128.32.136.23) 19 ms 39 ms 39 ms 5 ccn-nerif22.Berkeley.EDU (128.32.168.22) 20 ms 39 ms 39 ms 6 128.32.197.4 (128.32.197.4) 59 ms 119 ms 39 ms 7 131.119.2.5 (131.119.2.5) 59 ms 59 ms 39 ms 8 129.140.70.13 (129.140.70.13) 80 ms 79 ms 99 ms 9 129.140.71.6 (129.140.71.6) 139 ms 139 ms 159 ms 10 129.140.81.7 (129.140.81.7) 199 ms 180 ms 300 ms 11 129.140.72.17 (129.140.72.17) 300 ms 239 ms 239 ms 12 * * * 13 128.121.54.72 (128.121.54.72) 259 ms 499 ms 279 ms 14 * * * 15 * * * 16 * * * 17 * * * 18 ALLSPICE.LCS.MIT.EDU (18.26.0.115) 339 ms 279 ms 279 ms
Note that the gateways 12, 14, 15, 16 & 17 hops away either don't send ICMP "time exceeded" messages or send them with a TTL too small to reach us. 14 - 17 are running the MIT C Gateway code that doesn't send "time exceeded"s. God only knows what's going on with 12.
The silent gateway 12 in the above may be the result of a bug in the 4.[23] BSD network code (and its derivatives): 4.x (x <= 3) sends an unreachable message using whatever TTL remains in the original datagram. Since, for gateways, the remaining TTL is zero, the ICMP "time exceeded" is guaranteed to not make it back to us. The behavior of this bug is slightly more interesting when it appears on the destination system:
1 helios.ee.lbl.gov (128.3.112.1) 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms 2 lilac-dmc.Berkeley.EDU (128.32.216.1) 39 ms 19 ms 39 ms 3 lilac-dmc.Berkeley.EDU (128.32.216.1) 19 ms 39 ms 19 ms 4 ccngw-ner-cc.Berkeley.EDU (128.32.136.23) 39 ms 40 ms 19 ms 5 ccn-nerif35.Berkeley.EDU (128.32.168.35) 39 ms 39 ms 39 ms 6 csgw.Berkeley.EDU (128.32.133.254) 39 ms 59 ms 39 ms 7 * * * 8 * * * 9 * * * 10 * * * 11 * * * 12 * * * 13 rip.Berkeley.EDU (128.32.131.22) 59 ms ! 39 ms ! 39 ms !
Notice that there are 12 "gateways" (13 is the final
destination) and exactly the last half of them are "missing".
What's really happening is that rip (a Sun-3 running Sun OS3.5) is using the
TTL from our arriving datagram as the TTL in its ICMP reply. So, the reply
will time out on the return path (with no notice sent to anyone since ICMPs
aren't sent for ICMPs) until we probe with a TTL that's at least twice the
path length. That is, rip is really only 7 hops away. A reply that returns
with a TTL of 1 is a clue this problem exists.
traceroute
prints a "!" after the time if
the TTL is <= 1. Since vendors ship a lot of obsolete (DEC´s
Ultrix, Sun 3.x) or non-standard (HP-UX) software, expect to see this
problem frequently and/or take care picking the target host of your
probes.
Other possible annotations after the time are
!H,
!N,
!P (got a
host, network or protocol unreachable, respectively),
!A,
!C (access to
the network or host, respectively, is prohibited),
!X
(communication administratively prohibited by filtering),
!S or
!F (source
route failed or fragmentation needed - neither of these should ever occur
and the associated gateway is busted if you see one),
!U
(destination network or host unknown),
!T
(destination network or host unreachable for TOS),
!<code>
(other ICMP unreachable code).
TOS=xxx!
(TOS bit in returned packet differs from last hop). If almost all the probes
result in some kind of unreachable, traceroute
will
give up and exit.
$ traceroute -g 10.3.0.5
128.182.0.0
will show the path from the Cambridge Mailbridge to PSC, while
$ traceroute -g 192.5.146.4 -g
10.3.0.5 35.0.0.0
will show the path from the Cambridge Mailbridge to Merit, using PSC to reach the Mailbridge.
This program is intended for use in network testing, measurement
and management. It should be used primarily for manual fault isolation.
Because of the load it could impose on the network, it is unwise to use
traceroute
during normal operations or from
automated scripts.
SEE ALSO
HISTORY
The very first traceroute
(never released)
used ICMP ECHO_REQUEST datagrams as probe packets. During the first night of
testing it was discovered that more than half the router vendors of the time
would not return an ICMP TIME_EXCEEDED for an ECHO_REQUEST.
traceroute
was then changed to use UDP probe
packets. Most modern TCP/IP implementations will now generate an ICMP error
message to ICMP query messages, and the option to use ECHO_REQUEST probes
was re-implemented.
The traceroute
command first appeared in
4.4BSD. The traceroute6
command first appeared in the WIDE Hydrangea IPv6 protocol stack kit.
AUTHORS
Implemented by Van Jacobson from a suggestion by Steve Deering. Debugged by a cast of thousands with particularly cogent suggestions or fixes from C. Philip Wood, Tim Seaver, and Ken Adelman.