What is a traceroute?

traceroute, sometimes called tracert, is a network troubleshooting tool used to measure packet transit times and determine where an interruption or slowdown occurs between two systems. Traceroute displays information about each hop—the routers and servers between origin and destination on a network—as well as the amount of time it took for messages to reach each hop. By measuring these networks' routes, traceroute helps administrators diagnose connection problems across a hybrid or cloud-based environment.

Traceroute works by sending several dummy packets from a source IP (Internet Protocol) address and following the path those packets take before they reach their destination. As the packets pass through each router and hub on the path, they need to be acknowledged via ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) echo requests. This causes each router in the path to respond with an ICMP echo response containing details of where it is, as well as how long it took for the packet to arrive and how much time was required for it to process.

Traceroute is useful in a few ways:

1) It helps identify faulty routing points and slowdowns caused by local devices or configurations that are out of your control;

2) It can show you who's running certain parts of your networking infrastructure;

3) It reveals weak points where latency could be improved; and

4) It helps pinpoint bottlenecks that cause big delays, such as long distance trips through undersea cables.

To run a traceroute, you need access to some kind of command line interface that can run IP protocol commands such as ping or tracert. Run tracert ipaddresslist [list=comma separated IP addresses] which will present you with an output showing the route taken in succession from device to device, with each successive connection taking longer (in milliseconds). This can help identify where problems are occurring along the route between origin and destination. For example, if one hop takes 5000ms while another takes 10ms then there's likely an issue with that single hop causing either congestion or misconfiguration causing significant slowdown in transit times after reaching that point on the journey towards its ultimate destination.