TRACERT command

From a command line prompt, type TRACERT and the web site to which you wish to trace router hops.

E.g. tracert www.swcs.com.au

The program will run 3 tests displaying the time it takes to make a full round trip to each router hop in the journey from your computer to the destination computer. Normally, each router hop takes progressively longer as you approach your destination.

Time is measured in milliseconds i.e. one-thousandth of a second.

C:\> tracert www.swcs.com.au

Tracing route to www.swcs.com.au [210.9.95.46]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

In this example

• first hop always goes to the router for my private office network, shown with a "private" IP address of 192.168.0.1. The router has a WAN (Wide Area Network) port that connects it to the Internet via an Optus modem, and thus has a "public" IP address assigned to it by Optus. As traffic passes from my local network to the WAN, the source address in each packet is translated on the fly from the private address of the PC into that public IP address, not displayed here, that is stored within my router's settings using Network Address Translation. When a reply returns to my router, it uses the TCP client port number it also stored in the packet during that outbound phase to determine where on the internal network to now forward the reply. On the Internet, the router itself appears to be the source/destination for this traffic.
• The second hop now goes via the modem to the default gateway, outside my private office, part of the Optus network, and first hop on the actual Internet. This gateway router has a different public IP address, again not displayed here, with its private IP address 10.50.128.1 representing the local side of its connection to my in-house router.
• The third hop is to another Optusnet gateway, this time displaying its public IP address.
• Then through four hops on the Optus network before cutting across to the AAPT network (connect.com.au).
• And so on, until with the final hop (hop number 15) we find ourselves at the host for www.swcs.com.au [210.9.95.46]. Takes about 28 milliseconds to get there and back again (less than 1/30th of a second).

Router Hop	Test 1	Test 2	Test 3	IP Address
1	<1 ms	<1 ms	<1 ms	192.168.0.1
2	6 ms	5 ms	6 ms	10.50.128.1
3	6 ms	5 ms	6 ms	rdl3-ge1.gw.optusnet.com.au [211.28.132.1]
4	20 ms	22 ms	21 ms	61.88.171.113
5	22 ms	23 ms	24 ms	61.88.240.119
6	27 ms	20 ms	24 ms	61.88.240.119
7	21 ms	19 ms	21 ms	Connectcom.14VRC76F06.optus.net.au [61.88.151.70]
8	24 ms	50 ms	25 ms	ge-0-1-0.dst1.bri.connect.com.au [203.63.170.93]
9	21 ms	26 ms	20 ms	so-2-0-0.cre1.bri.connect.com.au [202.10.0.97]
10	21 ms	21 ms	20 ms	so-0-0-1.dst2.for.connect.com.au [202.10.0.110]
11	26 ms	25 ms	25 ms	gigabitethernet0-3.cor9.for.connect.com.au [203.63.217.236]
12	26 ms	25 ms	26 ms	jupiter.ourdsl.com.au [210.8.244.66]
13	26 ms	25 ms	26 ms	gigabitethernet1-0-0.bdr2.bri.webmetrix.net.au [203.63.4.253]
14	27 ms	26 ms	27 ms	fastethernet2-0-0.cor1.bri.webmetrix.net [202.3.96.2]
15	28 ms	27 ms	26 ms	svc000.bri2h.webmetrix.net.au [210.9.95.46]

Trace complete.

Click here for more information