Re: How do you "TRACEROUTE"?

by "Harold A. Driscoll" <harold(at)driscoll.chi.il.us>

 Date:  Fri, 18 Feb 2000 12:02:19 -0600
 To:  "Nathaniel Bank" <Nathan.Bank(at)cello.net>
 Cc:  "Gary Churchman" <gchurchman(at)medseek.com>, <hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>, "Kym Jones" <kjones(at)adam.com.au>
 References:  vangogh
  todo: View Thread, Original
At 09:57 18-02-00 , Nathaniel Bank wrote:
>Just to clear a few little things up... You do not have to 
>cd anywhere to do a traceroute. It is a program in the 
>%system_root% folder and will therefore run from 
>whatever directory you happen to be in. Also, the 
>DOS version has a few flags that might be helpful:

This is likely true... if not, see your system administrator, as some have
been known to dumb-down PCs beyond usability. <g>

>    -j host-list        Loose source route along host-list. 
>Frankly I don't know what this one does :-) perhaps 
>someone can enlighten us?

Briefly, it lets you indicate hosts (up to 8) that should be taken along
the way. This lets you ~tell traceroute where to go~. 

This is described in considerable detail in "TCP/IP Illustrated Volume I:
The Protocols" by W Richard Stevens, Addison Wesley, 1994, ISBN
0-201-63346-9. Unlike most books about the Internet, this one is written by
someone who knows well of which he speaks. A chapter is given to the
traceroute program. [Volume II discusses TCP/IP by looking at the reference
implementation in detail, and Volume III discusses some application
protocols, such as a chapter on HTTP.]

Note that traceroute has three particular uses...
	(1) a quick test for net connectivity, often with a clue of where in the
backbone things didn't get any further...
	(2) a ~big stick~ file attachment (its output) to show ~see, it really is
broken~ when arguing with a network administrator... and
	(3) a powerful tool (of course, one of several) for network administrators.

Safe computing,  /Harold
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Harold A. Driscoll                 mailto:Harold(at)Driscoll.Chi.IL.US
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