In many cases, you’ll need to see a traceroute from your computer to your domain in order to diagnose connection and other problems. To run a traceroute from your machine, follow the instructions below.
Traceroute on Windows
To run a traceroute to your domain from a Windows machine, open your Command Prompt (Start – cmd.exe), and type the command:
tracert mydomain.comreplacing mydomain.com with your domain name. The results will look something like this:
C:\>tracert mydomain.com Tracing route to hostingmanual.net [64.33.62.124] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms mynetworkserver [192.168.0.1] 2 150 ms 16 ms 34 ms gate.myisp.com [12.14.232.1] 3 61 ms 60 ms 66 ms sl-gw12-kc-9-1-0-TS12.sprintlink.net [160.81.94.81] 4 109 ms 60 ms 72 ms 144.232.23.14 5 111 ms 50 ms 54 ms sl-bb23-fw-10-1.sprintlink.net [144.232.18.229] 6 145 ms 67 ms 52 ms 144.232.18.30 7 106 ms 183 ms 191 ms 177.at-2-0-0.XR1.DFW9.ALTER.NET [152.63.100.170] 8 135 ms 105 ms 427 ms 0.so-2-0-0.XL1.DFW9.ALTER.NET [152.63.101.253] 9 116 ms 176 ms 94 ms 0.so-0-0-0.TL1.DFW9.ALTER.NET [152.63.0.193] 10 272 ms 158 ms 178 ms 0.so-5-0-0.TL1.CHI2.ALTER.NET [146.188.177.253] 11 213 ms 130 ms 114 ms 0.so-2-0-0.XL1.CHI2.ALTER.NET [152.63.67.126] 12 97 ms 79 ms 155 ms 0.so-7-0-0.XR1.CHI2.ALTER.NET [152.63.67.130] 13 103 ms 110 ms 128 ms 193.ATM7-0.XR1.CHI6.ALTER.NET [152.63.65.26] 14 163 ms 165 ms 209 ms 191.ATM11-0-0.GW2.CHI6.ALTER.NET [146.188.208.185] 15 285 ms 200 ms 174 ms UU-ds3.axxs.net [157.130.101.114] 16 159 ms 67 ms 83 ms 209.204.202.246 Trace complete.
Copying Windows Traceroute Results
To copy the traceroute results from the Windows command prompt:
- Right-click your mouse and select “Mark”.
- Highlight the full text of the traceroute results by positioning your cursor at the beginning, holding down your left mouse button, and dragging the cursor to highlight the contents.
- Hit your
Enterkey to copy the results.
To paste the results in an e-mail or web-based form, just right-click and select “Paste”, or type CTRL-V.
Other Traceroute Options
If the command prompt option sounds like too much trouble, or if you’re using a Mac instead of a Windows machine, there are software programs available that make the process easier:
Windows Traceroute Software:
Traceroute on Linux (Ubuntu)
Let’s install traceroute:
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade && sudo apt install tracerouteTo run a traceroute, type
traceroute www.example.comThe result should look like this:
traceroute to www.google.com (172.217.165.132), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 * * *
2 10.74.7.38 (10.74.7.38) 0.570 ms 10.74.7.40 (10.74.7.40) 0.537 ms 10.74.7.46 (10.74.7.46) 0.825 ms
3 138.197.248.238 (138.197.248.238) 0.892 ms 138.197.248.248 (138.197.248.248) 1.151 ms 138.197.248.236 (138.197.248.236) 1.331 ms
4 138.197.248.14 (138.197.248.14) 0.746 ms 138.197.248.56 (138.197.248.56) 0.839 ms 138.197.248.60 (138.197.248.60) 0.828 ms
5 138.197.244.32 (138.197.244.32) 1.109 ms 138.197.244.36 (138.197.244.36) 1.098 ms 138.197.244.38 (138.197.244.38) 1.246 ms
6 162.243.191.243 (162.243.191.243) 1.398 ms 0.982 ms 162.243.191.241 (162.243.191.241) 1.137 ms
7 * 108.170.248.65 (108.170.248.65) 1.780 ms *
8 142.250.224.245 (142.250.224.245) 14.502 ms 172.253.69.210 (172.253.69.210) 3.862 ms 142.251.65.98 (142.251.65.98) 2.788 ms
9 lax30s03-in-f4.1e100.net (172.217.165.132) 1.751 ms 1.745 ms 108.170.248.116 (108.170.248.116) 1.653 msTraceroute on Mac
Traceroute is preinstalled on Macs. You can follow the same steps as with Linux.
traceroute www.example.comMac Traceroute Software
Interpreting Traceroute Results
Traceroute is a tool that traces the route that packets travel across a network connection between two hosts. The route between your computer and your server will vary from time to time as the network routers involved attempt to find the fastest and most reliable route.
The name (if available) and IP address of each gateway (router) is displayed, along with the round trip time (in milliseconds) for each of the trace packets to reach the specified gateway and return. These intervals may vary widely as a function of network load.
Lost packets are indicated by an asterisk (*). There are several factors responsible for lost packets: Some gateways don’t return the appropriate message requested by traceroute. Some firewalls use packet filters which block packets used by traceroute. (If you are behind a firewall that blocks traceroute, the results show the route to your firewall, followed by a line of asterisks.)
Finally, packets may be lost as a result of network congestion (heavy load). World Wide Web clients and servers normally recover automatically when a small percentage of packets are lost with no indication to the user except for slower response time.
What you want to look for in your traceroute results are any asterisks (*) or excessively high numbers in the time columns. “Excessively high” is a relative term, and depends in part upon your own Internet connection speed.
A general rule-of-thumb might be that times of under 150 ms are “normal”, times above that indicate a potential problem. Asterisks indicate that the router did not return a response at all. If a particular router did not return any times at all, then that’s a good indication of the source of your problem.
The first 2 or 3 “nodes” or “hops” represent your computer and your ISP’s server(s) and router(s). The last two nodes represent your domain and the server it resides on (which are the only two nodes that we have any control over.) All nodes in between represent “Internet backbone” routers. These routers are provided by independent companies (like AT&T, Sprint, MCI, etc.)
If the traceroute indicates that the problem may be at your domain or its server, you should contact your web host’s support so that they can investigate the problem. If the problem appears to be at your ISP, you should contact their support department for assistance. If the problem appears to be somewhere in between, there’s really no one to contact, since the backbone providers do not support end users. On the other hand, they generally do an excellent job of monitoring issues on their network, probably knew about the problem long before you did, and are working hard to get it corrected.