Traceroute

Trace the path from this server to another
from: centralops.net [70.84.211.98]
to: curtin.edu.au


[Screencapture from http://centralops.net/co/ 8 March 2009]


18 Hops (not including the final destination) - Interesting to see it go through so many routers so quickly across the world and pass through Sydney, Melbourne & Adelaide on it's way to Perth and then on to Curtin in approx 1700 milliseconds.

The IP address for curtin.edu.au is 134.7.179.56

I then had to "ping the Blackboard site and compare the time with the time taken to ping from the net tools site. Is it less or more than you expected?" (Curtin Blackboard - excerpts viewed online 8 March 2009 at: http://lms.curtin.edu.au)

I did expect it to be much faster as pinging Curtin from my computer in Perth is going to be a much shorter journey than pinging from the net tools site.

Result (Pinging curtin.edu.au from my local computer):
Pinging lms.curtin.edu.au [134.7.180.137] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 134.7.180.137: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=118
Reply from 134.7.180.137: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=118
Reply from 134.7.180.137: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=118
Reply from 134.7.180.137: bytes=32 time=18ms TTL=118

Ping statistics for 134.7.180.137:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 18ms, Maximum = 19ms, Average = 18ms


Result (Pinging curtin.edu.au from centralops.net):
1 109 234 134.7.179.56
2 109 236 134.7.179.56
3 109 236 134.7.179.56
4 109 236 134.7.179.56
5 109 235 134.7.179.56


Statistics
packets sent 5
received 5 100%
lost 0 0%

times (ms) min 234
avg 235
max 236


On the face of it, this task was pretty straight forward and easy. Though I admit, I didn't know much about practicle uses for this before this task.

I then used tracert to from much computer to curtin.edu.au

Result:
C:\>tracert curtin.edu.au
Tracing route to curtin.edu.au [134.7.179.56]over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 3 ms 2 ms 1 ms 192.168.2.1
2 16 ms 16 ms 17 ms nexthop.wa.ii.net [203.59.14.16]
3 17 ms 20 ms 17 ms gi2-7.per-qv1-bdr2.ii.net [203.215.4.87]
4 17 ms 16 ms 16 ms ge2-0-1.pe1.c.per.aarnet.edu.au [203.215.5.17]
5 17 ms 16 ms 40 ms ge-1-0-3.bb1.a.per.aarnet.net.au [202.158.198.1]
6 32 ms 30 ms 19 ms gigabitethernet0.er1.curtin.cpe.aarnet.net.au [202.158.198.178]
7 17 ms 19 ms 18 ms gw1.er1.curtin.cpe.aarnet.net.au [202.158.198.186]
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 19 ms 19 ms 18 ms systems.curtin.edu.au [134.7.179.56]

Trace complete.


Using traceroute from my local computer to Curtin was again much faster due to the distance and reduced "hops" required. The time in milliseconds to each router were much smaller.

Tools such as tracert & ping could be used to identify problems across a network. If one of the hops takes an unusually long time, then there may be a problem at that point.

References:

• Central Ops.net - excerpts viewed online 8 March 2009 at: http://centralops.net/co/
• Curtin Blackboard - excerpts viewed online 8 March 2009 at: http://lms.curtin.edu.au