Traveling Through a Network
Ping and traceroute are critical tools for diagnosing network problems and troubleshooting connectivity issues.
Ping is a command-line tool used to verify the accessibility of a host on an IP network. It operates by dispatching ICMP Echo Request messages to the host and awaits an Echo Reply. Its main function is to ascertain whether the host is active and to gauge the round-trip time for message delivery. This is useful for diagnosing network latency and detecting packet loss (Hoffman, 2013).
Traceroute, or tracert on Windows, is a command-line utility that traces the route of packets from the origin to the destination. It operates by dispatching packets with incrementally increasing Time-To-Live (TTL) values. As each router along the path encounters a packet, it reduces the TTL by one. If the TTL value drops to zero, the router returns an ICMP "Time Exceeded" message to the source. This method is repeated until the packets arrive at their destination, compiling a list of all intervening routers (hops) and the duration of each hop.
Network congestion, characterized by high traffic volumes, can lead to delays and packet loss. This results in timeouts or errors in ping and traceroute results. Such congestion may occur at any point on the path from the local network to the destination server.
Firewall and Security Settings: To prevent denial-of-service attacks, firewalls and security protocols frequently block ICMP traffic. Consequently, this may cause ping requests to time out and traceroute commands to not receive responses from specific hops.
Incorrect IP Address: An incorrect IP address or a non-responsive target host will cause both ping and traceroute to fail in reaching the destination. This situation is frequently encountered when diagnosing connectivity issues.
Router Configuration Issues: Routers that are misconfigured may drop packets or incorrectly forward them, leading to incomplete paths in traceroute or timeouts in ping.
In summary, grasping the correlation between Round-Trip Time (RTT) and geographical location, as well as the proficient application of ping and traceroute, is vital for the diagnosis and resolution of network issues. These instruments offer significant data on network performance and assist in pinpointing the fundamental causes of connectivity disruptions, leading to more stable and dependable network functioning (Hoffman, 2013).
- From my Ping/tracert tests on Google & Yahoo Jp I noticed is that I have a low latency ping from google servers compared to Yahoo Japan, my guess it had to do because I live in the Bay Area close to San Jose where googles main HQ/ data servers are, compared to the 125ms ping from Japan, which is not the bad considering the distance overseas, I guess if I didn't have 2gb power plan Xfinity those numbers would be higher, and also ran these test on a wired ethernet connection.
Reference
Vahid, F., & Lysecky, S. (2019). Computing technology for all. zyBooks.
Hoffman, C. (2013, January 19). How to Use Traceroute to Identify Network Problems. How To Geek. Retrieved October 17, 2024, from https://www.howtogeek.com/134132/how-to-use-traceroute-to-identify-network-problems/
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