Traceroute is a network diagnostic method where a packet is sent to a destination. The traceroute software reports the location and travel time of each hop the packet makes as it travels from device to device on the intermediate network. An example of a program that performs a traceroute is the tracert command in Microsoft Windows, or traceroute command in Linux, macOS, and BSD.

Example of a traceroute

The following is an example of a traceroute performed by the Windows tracert command. The text output, displayed below, lists each of the hops a packet travels to arrive at the Computer Hope server (computerhope.com).

Running this command from another computer, or another geographic location, would produce different output. In this example, IPv6 addresses and hostnames are listed.

tracert computerhope.com

Tracing route to computerhope.com [2400:cb00:2048:1::6814:3876] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 1 ms 1 ms 2 ms 2601:671:8280:1820:2e85:69ff:fe9b:3639 2 10 ms 11 ms 9 ms po-101.sandy.ut.utah.comcast.net [2001:558:102:2060::1] 3 9 ms 9 ms 9 ms be-5-ar01.saltlakecity.ut.utah.comcast.net [2001:558:100:22::1] 4 9 ms 9 ms 9 ms 2001:558:fe0b:a::a 5 14 ms 9 ms 8 ms 2400:cb00:2048:1::6814:3876 Trace complete.

ICMP, Network terms, Trace

  • Windows tracert command.
  • Linux traceroute command.
  • Network and network card help and support.