Traceroute is a tool the maps the route a packet takes from the local machine to a remote destination.
 The traceroute command | |
| Original author(s) | Van Jacobson |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 1987 |
| Platform | Unix-like systems |
| Type | Command |
| Developer(s) | Microsoft, ReactOS Contributors |
|---|---|
| Platform | Windows, ReactOS |
| Type | Command |
| License | Microsoft Windows: Proprietary commercial software ReactOS: GNU General Public License |
In computing, traceroute and tracert are computer network diagnostic commands for displaying possible routes (paths) and measuring transit delays of packets across an Internet Protocol (IP) network. The history of the route is recorded as the round-trip times of the packets received from each successive host (remote node) in the route (path); the sum of the mean times in each hop is a measure of the total time spent to establish the connection. Traceroute proceeds unless all (usually three) sent packets are lost more than twice; then the connection is lost and the route cannot be evaluated. Ping, on the other hand, only computes the final round-trip times from the destination point.
For Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) the tool sometimes has the name traceroute6 and tracert6.
