Traceroute, also known as trace route or pathping, is a network diagnostic tool used to determine the route taken by packets across an Internet Protocol (IP) network. It is a valuable tool for network administrators and IT professionals to troubleshoot network issues, identify bottlenecks, and analyze network performance.
Traceroute works by sending a series of packets to a specified destination host, typically with increasing Time to Live (TTL) values. Each router along the path decrements the TTL by one, and when it reaches zero, the router returns an ICMP Time Exceeded message. Traceroute uses this information to build a list of the routers that the packets traversed, providing insights into the network’s topology and latency.
