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Article Content
Traceroute
Running a Traceroute
Reading a Traceroute

Traceroute
Traceroute is a utility that records the Internet route (gateway computers at
each hop) between your computer and a specified destination computer. It
also calculates and displays the amount of time for each hop. This utility helps
you find where high transfer times are occurring in your internal network and
the Internet. Before using Traceroute, you can use the Ping utility to identify
whether a host is present on the network. For more information, see Running
and Reading a Ping.

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Running a Traceroute
Take the following steps to run a traceroute in Microsoft  Windows :
® ®

1. Press Windows key + R to open the Run window.

2. Enter cmd and press Enter to open a Command Prompt.
3. Enter tracert, a space, then the IP address or web address for the
destination site (for example: tracert www.lexis.com).
4. Press Enter.

Take the following steps to run a traceroute in Mac OS :®

1. Click the Spotlight icon in the Menu bar.

Note: The icon looks like a magnifying glass.
2. Enter Network Utility into the Spotlight Search field.
3. Double-click Network Utility from the Top Hit list.
4. Click the Traceroute tab.
5. Enter the IP address or web address for the destination site and
click Trace.
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Reading a Traceroute
The traceroute application sends three packets from your computer to your
traceroute destination and waits for them to return. Each time traceroute
receives packets, it sends three new packets. The traceroute application times
the transmission of these packets to every hop between your computer and
the targeted destination terminal. The traceroute report displays these items in
a list. Packets that fail to return (dropped packets) are indicated with an
asterisk (*). Consistent indications of transmission times that exceed 600
milliseconds indicate a possible connectivity problem.

Note: Use the URL www.lexis.com or www.nexis.com to run a traceroute to

the LexisNexis® Services.

Slow Hops

Slow hops range from 250ms to 300ms.

Asterisks

If you receive asterisks, your results did not return within the TTL (time to live)
value. This is due to the ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) blocking
traffic or the packet did not reach the intended destination and timed out.

If every packet beyond a certain hop returns asterisks, you could have a
problem with a router/gateway after the last successful hop. The following are
a list of suggestions:

 If this point is appearing in the first 1-3 hops, the packets may not be
making it out of your firm's network. This indicates a possible issue with
your firm's network.
 If this point is appearing anywhere in the middle of the traceroute, there
could be an issue with your internet service provider.
 If this point is appearing at the end of the traceroute, there could be an
issue with a LexisNexis router.

Common Error Messages:

  !A - Traceroute aborted. The system administrator for your network has
blocked the traceroute at a certain point.
 !N - No route to host. There is no known path to the requested host.
The last host's routing table does not contain an entry for the network or
the host you want to reach.
 !H - Host unavailable. The host is no longer on the network. Routing
information for the host exists, but the host is not responding or the
host computer is off and unable to respond to the request.
 !P - Incompatible protocol.

The following traceroute entries indicate that you are receiving return packets
from the LexisNexis routers:

 Sprint 144.232.253.18
 AT&T 12.127.225.86
 UUnet 157.130.114.62

Note: If you cannot trace the LexisNexis servers, your traceroute report times
out after displaying these internet addresses.

Article Content

Ping
Running a Ping
Reading a Ping

Ping
Ping (Packet InterNet Groper) is a network utility that sends a series of packets
to a specified address. The originating computer sends these packets to
discover whether the IP address of the destination computer exists and is
accessible. If the PING is unsuccessful, the originating computer will most
likely not be able to communicate with the destination computer, though it
may be able to communicate via other protocols.

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Running a Ping
1. Press Windows key + R to open the Run window.
 2. Enter cmd and press Enter to display a Command Prompt.
3. Enter ping, a space, then the IP address or web address for the
destination site (for example, www.lexis.com).

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Reading a Ping
The Ping application sends packets from your computer to your ping
destination and waits for them to return. If all packets return within the
determined time period, the Ping application reports a successful connection.
More elaborate Ping applications display the time it took for the packet to be
returned in the report.

Example:

ping dayton.net

Pinging "dayton.net"...domain server (192.103.63.99) [OK]

Type escape sequence to abort.

Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echoes to 199.218.243.8, timeout is 2 seconds:

!!!!!

Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 44/51/56 ms

Example:

PING dayton.net: 64 data bytes

72 bytes from quark.dayton.net (199.218.243.8): icmp_seq=1. time=49. ms

72 bytes from quark.dayton.net (199.218.243.8): icmp_seq=2. time=47. ms

72 bytes from quark.dayton.net (199.218.243.8): icmp_seq=3. time=64. ms

72 bytes from quark.dayton.net (199.218.243.8): icmp_seq=4. time=47. ms

----dayton.net PING Statistics----

5 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 20% packet loss

round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 47/51/64

How to Use the Ping Command to

Test Your Network
https://www.howtogeek.com/355664/how-to-use-ping-to-test-your-network/

  @BRADYJGAVIN

JUN 21, 2018, 8:00 AM EST | 4 MIN READ

The ping command sends packets of data to a specific IP address on a network, and
then lets you know how long it took to transmit that data and get a response. It’s a
handy tool that you can use to quickly test various points of your network. Here’s how to
use it.

How Does Ping Work?

Ping comes from a term used in sonar technology that sends out pulses of sound, and
then listens for the echo to return. On a computer network, a ping tool is built into most
operating systems that works in much the same way. You issue the ping command
along with a specific URL or IP address. Your computer sends several packets of
information out to that device, and then waits for a response. When it gets the response,
the ping tool shows you how long each packet took to make the round trip—or tells you
there was no reply.

It sounds simple, and it is. But you can use it to good effect. You can test whether your
computer can reach another device—like your router—on your local network, or whether
it can reach a device on the Internet. This can help you determine if a network problem
is somewhere on your local network, or somewhere beyond. The time it takes packets
to return to you can help you identify a slow connection, or if you’re experiencing packet
loss.

And it pretty much doesn’t matter what operating system you’re using. Pull up a
terminal or Command Prompt window, and you can use ping on macOS, Linux, or any
version of Windows.

RELATED: 10 Useful Windows Commands You Should Know

How to Use Ping

We’re going to use the Windows Command Prompt in our example here. But you can
also use the ping command in Windows PowerShell, or in the Terminal app on macOS
or any Linux distro. Once you get to using the actual command, it works the same
everywhere.

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In Windows, hit Windows+R. In the Run window, type “cmd” into the search box, and
then hit Enter.
At the prompt, type “ping” along with the URL or IP address you want to ping, and then
hit Enter. In the image below, we’re pinging www.howtogeek.com and getting a normal
response.

That response shows the URL you’re pinging, the IP address associated with that URL,
and the size of the packets being sent on the first line. The next four lines show the
replies from each individual packet, including the time (in milliseconds) it took for the
response and the time-to-live (TTL) of the packet, which is the amount of time that must
pass before the packet is discarded.

At the bottom, you’ll see a summary that shows how many packets were sent and
received, as well as the minimum, maximum, and average response time.

And in the next image, we’re pinging the router on our local network using its IP address.
We’re also getting a normal response from it.
When the ping tool does not get a response from whatever devices you’re pinging, it lets
you know that, too.

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And that’s how to use ping at its most basic. Of course, like most commands, there are
some advanced switches you can use to make it behave a bit differently. For example,
you can have it keep pinging a destination until you stop the command, specify the
number of times you want it to ping, set how often it should ping, and more. But unless
you’re doing some very specific types of troubleshooting, you won’t need to worry much
about those advanced switches.
If you’re curious about them, though, just type “ping /?” at the Command Prompt to see
a list.

So, What Can You Do With Ping?

Now that you know how to use the command, here are some interesting things you can
do with it:

 Ping a URL (like www.howtogeek.com) or IP address to see if you can reach an

internet destination. If you get a successful response, you know that all the
networking devices between you and that destination are working, including the
network adapter in your computer, your router, and whatever devices exist on the
internet between your router and the destination. And if you’re interested in exploring
 those routes further, you can use another networking tool named tracert to do just
that.

 Ping a URL to resolve its IP address. If you want know the IP address for a particular
URL, you can ping the URL. The ping tool shows you right at the top the IP address it’s
working with.

 Ping your router to see if you can reach it. If you can’t successfully ping an internet
location, you can then try pinging your router. A successful response lets you know
that your local network is working okay, and that the problem reaching the internet
location is somewhere out of your control.

 Ping your loopback address (127.0.0.1). If you can’t successfully ping your router, but
your router appears to be turned on and working, you can try pinging what’s known as
a loopback address. That address is always 127.0.0.1, and pinging it successfully lets
you know that the network adapter on your computer (and the networking software in
your OS) is working properly.

Note: You may not get a ping response from other computers on your local network
because the built-in firewalls on those devices prevent them from responding to ping
requests. If you want to be able to ping those devices, you’ll need to turn off that setting
to allow pings through the firewall.

The list above uses a kind of outside-in approach, where you ping the furthest
destination first, and then work your way in to the more local devices. Some people like
to work inside-out by pinging the loopback address first, then their router (or another
local device), and then an internet address.

And of course, what we’re talking about in this article is mostly about using ping to
perform troubleshooting on a home or small business network. On larger networks,
there’s a lot more complexity to worry about. Plus, if you’re tasked with troubleshooting
larger networks, you probably already know how to use ping and many other networking
tools.

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