Tracepath

Tracepath is a tool used by network administrators to troubleshoot network connectivity issues. It is similar to the more well-known tool, traceroute, but has some additional features that make it more useful in certain situations.

How Tracepath Works

Like traceroute, tracepath sends a series of packets (usually ICMP packets) to a target host and measures the time it takes for each packet to reach its destination. However, instead of stopping after a certain number of hops, tracepath continues until it reaches the target host or is told to stop.

While tracepath is running, it gathers information about each hop (or "node") along the way, such as the IP address and the round-trip time for each packet. This information can be used to diagnose network latency issues, identify bottlenecks on the network, or determine the path that packets take through the network.

Running Tracepath

Tracepath is typically run from the command line on a Unix or Linux system. Here is an example of how to use it:

$ tracepath google.com
 1:  gateway.local (192.168.1.1)          0.670ms pmtu 1500
 1:  10.0.0.1                               1.022ms 
 1:  10.0.0.2                               1.168ms 
 2:  192.168.100.1                          0.982ms 
 3:  192.168.200.1                          1.217ms 
 4:  203.0.113.25                           3.395ms asymm  5 
 5:  no reply
 6:  no reply

In this example, we are running tracepath on the domain name "google.com". The output shows each hop along the way, along with the IP address and round-trip time for each hop. When tracepath reaches the final destination, it reports the total time it took to reach the destination.

Benefits of Tracepath

Tracepath has several features that make it a useful tool for troubleshooting network connectivity issues. These include:

• The ability to continue tracing past a certain number of hops, which can help diagnose routing issues.
• The ability to detect asymmetric routing, which can cause problems for certain types of traffic.
• The ability to show the full path that packets take through the network, which can help identify bottlenecks or misconfigurations.

Overall, tracepath is a valuable tool for network administrators who need to diagnose connectivity issues, and it has several features that make it worth considering over other similar tools.