trace route

[aksher]

C:\Documents and Settings>tracert 10.80.133.192

Tracing route to 10.80.133.192

over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 235 ms 237 ms 233 ms 10.80.133.192

here what is 235 ms, 237 ms, 233 ms

[Joe Clarke]

Each hop gets three probe packets. Those numbers are the round-trip response time for each packet.

The way Windows tracert works is to send ICMP echo request packets with a low TTL at each hop. The intermediate gateways (once the TTL descrements to 0) will reply with ICMP time exceeded messages. The end host will reply with an ICMP echo response.

This is different than IOS or UNIX traceroute which use UDP packets at each hop (sent to a high UDP port). The intermediate gateways still send back ICMP time exceeded messages, but the destination will send back a port unreachable.