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mtr, better than traceroute and ping combined

Terminal - mtr, better than traceroute and ping combined
mtr google.com
2009-02-21 07:53:32
User: fryfrog
391
Up
Down
mtr, better than traceroute and ping combined

mtr combines the functionality of the traceroute and ping programs in a single network diagnostic tool.

As mtr starts, it investigates the network connection between the host mtr runs on and HOSTNAME. by sending packets with purposly low TTLs. It continues to send packets with low TTL, noting the response time of the intervening routers. This allows mtr to print the response percentage and response times of the internet route to HOSTNAME. A sudden increase in packetloss or response time is often an indication of a bad (or simply over‐loaded) link.

Show sample output | Add to favourites | Report as malicious

Alternatives

There is 1 alternative - vote for the best!

Terminal - Alternatives
mtr google.com
2012-02-19 22:27:48
User: d_voge
Tags: bash ping traceroute
-1
Up
Down
ping as traceroute

You need to have mtr installed on your host.

Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious

Know a better way?

If you can do better, submit your command here.

What others think

Hi,

Your command line works great. i get some interesting information

from the traceroute and it keeps the information updated. im running

ubuntu EEE (easy Peasy) 8.10 on my netbook.

Greets Snipercup

Comment by snipercup 221 weeks and 1 day ago

Droool.. this is awesome, im hypnotized!

Comment by foucault 221 weeks ago

Great command! Thanx for sharing.

Comment by betsubetsu 221 weeks ago

Great one.. Thanks..

Comment by ergut 220 weeks and 6 days ago

To run in terminal do:

mtr -t

Great tool! Thanks!

Comment by nongeekboy 218 weeks and 5 days ago

I like to use

mtr -r -c 100

You don't get to watch but it'll print the statistics. You win some, you lose some.

Comment by brie 170 weeks and 1 day ago

The homebrew system is a great way to get this tool on OSX, btw -> http://github.com/mxcl/homebrew

Comment by 4fthawaiian 169 weeks and 1 day ago

great one, thanks for sharing!

Comment by KoRoVaMiLK 164 weeks and 5 days ago

Love this! Also love brie's example however I find 100 take's quite a while to report.

Thanks to the both of you this is super handy!

Comment by danstinebaugh 142 weeks and 5 days ago

great, thanks!

Comment by maneeshshetty 117 weeks and 1 day ago

Hi this a good command but this have a problem, is detected by the firewall , with many connections to dns provider probably your machine will be block by firewall,

Comment by aarntesla 115 weeks ago

tl;dr: mtr provides false reports.

It's worth mentioning a few things. First, ICMP packets must be processed by the control plane of a router or switch. "Normal" packets, however, are switched by hardware ASICs (in provider cores and some business devices).

This means that you could see "latency" and/or "packet loss" where there is none. In addition to being processed by the control plane, ICMP is often either rate-limited, blocked, policed, or otherwise handled differently than "normal" traffic.

What I'm trying to point out is that it's important to not just understand WHAT your tool does, but HOW it does it and how the results may be affected. This is true for any tool, but in my work I've seen many rely on results of "ping plotter" and "mtr" and similar tools to determine trouble and it is simply not always accurate. Service provider devices (particularly devices manufactured by Cisco) tend to have very weak processors. Poor network design (with regards to control plane tasks such as BGP scanning and SPF calculations) can also lead to false reports of packet loss.

Comment by pkttlk 19 weeks and 4 days ago

To install this using Macports, do

sudo port install mtr
Comment by cma 18 weeks and 4 days ago

Your point of view

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