Both Windows and Linux have the ability of diagnosing the health of a connection between a source and destination machine by also testing the communication status of the devices that make the connection possible.
Windows uses the command tracert for this utility.
Linux uses the command traceroute for this utility.
The route is determined by examining the ICMP Time Exceeded messages sent back by intermediate routers. Note that some routers silently drop packets with expired TTLs and are invisible to TRACERT / Traceroute utilities.
How to run a traceroute
Windows
- Open a command prompt by going to Start->run->type command->press enter.
- Type the command: tracert
For example:
C:\>tracert 4.2.2.2
Linux
For linux the command would be:
traceroute <ip address>
For example:
traceroute 4.2.2.2
