ping or traceroute

[duyngo]

Hello,

Is it possible to force a ping/trace to use an certain interface(s) and/or path?

thanks,

[mark-obrien]

Ping and traceroute follow the routing table. That is the main pupose of these tools, to verify the route table(s).

Short answer: no.

Mark

[duyngo]

Hi Mark,

Thank you for answering my question. I'm totally agreed with your answer but I'm little bit confused about the options of a trace. For example, Loose option: "this option allows you to specify a list of nodes that must be traversed when going to the destination selected." It's sounded like u can FORCE the path the traceroute will take???????

[mark-obrien]

It looks like you're right. I have attempted "loose" and "strict" as options in some pings, but I haven't been able to specify any more than the next hop, not the entire path. What is happening is that the ping is completed via the next hop specified. I suppose this proves whether some other device (the next hop) has a good route to the destination.

I remember reading a long time ago about loose source routing and strict source routing. They may be defined in the IP RFC (790 or 791?). This is where the host specifies the network path. Of course, this is seldom if ever used.

Mark