Ping and Traceroute Commands

Hey Everyone, 

This blog post will dive into ping and traceroute commands by comparing the different IP locations, packets received and lost, and amount of router hops between 3 different companies hosted in different parts of the world. 

Ping Google.com. Take a screenshot and document the results, including the number of packets sent, received, or lost and the range of response speeds.

 

Google.com = 4 packets sent, 4 packets received, 0 packets lost. 

Average RTT-9ms, maximum RTT-12ms, minimum RTT-8ms.

Ping at least two other websites, choosing sites hosted in different regions of the world. Take a screenshot and document the ping results for each website.

 

Howtonote.jp = 4 packets sent, 4 packets received, 0 packets lost. 

Average RTT-180ms, maximum RTT-182ms, minimum RTT-179ms. 

 

Polytec.com.au = 4 packets sent, 4 packets received, 0 packets lost.

Average RTT-211ms, maximum RTT-213ms, minimum RTT-213ms.

Run a traceroute to Google.com. Take a screenshot and document the results, including how many routers it passes through, how long it takes to hop from router to router, and if it fails before reaching its destination.

 

Google.com = 20 router hops.

Consistent RTT in ms from middle to end. 9 hop requests timed out. 

Run a traceroute to the same two websites you used in the ping activity. 

 

Howtonote.jp = 16 router hops.

Consistent RTT in ms from middle to end. 3 hop requests timed out. 

 

Polytec.com.au = 29 router hops.

Inconsistent RTT in ms from middle to end. 11 hop requests timed out.

Reflecting on your experience using the ping and traceroute commands, describe how packets travel through the network. Compare the ping and traceroute results from the different websites and explain how the paths to the different destinations differ. Make a conclusion about the relationship between the roundtrip time and geographical location.

Packets travel through the network from one computer to another, routed through switches and routers before reaching the final destination (Everything You Need to Know About Network Packets, 2022).

Once I had started to ping and traceroute the different websites, I had realized that the further away the country hosting the server was, the longer the round trip time would be. Following the results of each ping and traceroute, I was able to determine that the conclusion was true. In addition to my conclusion, Luke Richardson (2023) stated that distance can affect roundtrip times due to the length of travel directly correlating with the time taken for a request to reach a server and for a response to come back.

Explain how the ping and traceroute commands can be used to troubleshoot internet connection problems. Give at least two possible reasons why a ping request or traceroute command might time out or return with an error response.

Ping and traceroute commands can be used to troubleshoot internet connection problems by identifying the connectivity between two network connections and by checking the path that the computer is using to connect to the network (Ping Trace Techniques for Network Connectivity Troubleshooting, 2022). A traceroute command might time out or return with an error response if a router's firewall is blocking requests or if there are connection problems. Similarly, packets can get lost if there is interference from another device or if there are faulty network cards (Everything You Need to Know About Network Packets, 2022).

References

Everything You Need to Know About Network Packets. (2022, April 24). KeyCDN. https://www.keycdn.com/support/network-packets#:~:text=Packets%20are%20transmitted%20over%20a,reassembled%20into%20the%20original%20dataLinks to an external site..

Kaczanowski, M. (2021, October 4). How to use the Traceroute and Ping commands to troubleshoot network connectivity issues. freeCodeCamp.org. https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/traceroute-and-ping/Links to an external site.

Ping Trace Techniques for network connectivity troubleshooting. (2022, April 21). Okta, Inc. https://www.okta.com/identity-101/ping-trace/#:~:text=The%20PING%20test%20can%20identify,to%20connect%20to%20the%20networkLinks to an external site..

Richardson, L. (2023, December 20). What is Round Trip Time (RTT) | Behind the Ping | CDN Guide | Imperva. Learning Center. https://www.imperva.com/learn/performance/round-trip-time-rtt/Links to an external site.