Overview
A network diagnostic tool called traceroute is used to check the network between two locations. A traceroute from the starting point of a network connection to your GreggHost server, for example, must be done to determine the source of slowness or timeouts.
When should I use Traceroute?
Here are several scenarios in which a traceroute may be required to resolve a problem.
Slowness of the website
Run a traceroute from your computer to your website if your site is slow to discover if there are any networking issues between your location and the GreggHost server.
Timeouts for email clients
Run a traceroute to determine the quality of the connection to the mail server if you’re having problems with your mail connection.
To locate your mail server name, go to the Email client configuration page. Depending on your connection selection, it’s either imap.dreamhost.com or pop.dreamhost.com.
Carry out a traceroute.
In Windows, the following example shows how to run a traceroute:
tracert imap.dreamhost.com C:UsersGreggHost
Over a maximum of 30 hops, tracing the route to imap.dreamhost.com [64.90.62.162]:
1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.106.1 2 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 1 m 216.112.17.9.ptr.us.xo.net [216.112.17.9]
3 29 ms 28 ms 28 ms 28 ms ae1d0.mcr1.santaana-ca.us.xo.net [216.156.1.58]
216.156.16.70.ptr.us.xo.net 4 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms [216.156.16.70]
216.156.16.63.ptr.us.xo.net 5 25 ms 25 ms 25 ms 25 ms [216.156.16.63]
209.48.213.194 6 30 ms 30 ms 30 ms 30 ms
30 ms 30 ms 30 ms 30 ms 30 ms 30 ms 30 ms 30 ms 30 pdx1-cr-1.sd.dreamhost.com [66.33.200.2]
8 45 ms 42 ms 43 ms ip-66-33-200-25.dreamhost.com ip-66-33-200-25.dreamhost.com [66.33.200.25]
9:30:30:30:30:30:30:30:30:30:30:30:30:30:30:30:30:30:30:30:30:30:30 [64.90.62.162]
The trail is now complete.
The network hops to the server are shown above, and there are no timeouts on the network connection. If timeouts are listed, there may be a problem with the network.
How to run a traceroute
Using the Windows Operating System
Open a Command Prompt window.
Type tracert, followed by a space, and then the name of the site/server you want to connect to. For instance, if you wanted to connect to example.com, you’d type:
tracert example.com C:UsersGreggHost>
To start the tool, press the Enter key.
You may also use a traceroute to the mail subdomain to test your GreggHost mail server. Consider the following scenario:
tracert imap.dreamhost.com C:UsersGreggHost
Using the Linux Operating System
You’ll need to install the traceroute package first on most Linux systems.
To install, follow these steps:
Activate your terminal.
To install in Ubuntu, do the following:
$ sudo apt-get install traceroute [server]
You can run the command as follows once it’s been installed:
$ traceroute example.com [server]
After -I, certain Linux variations need you to select the protocol. Consider the following scenario:
$ traceroute -I ICMP example.com [server]
Mac OS X is a computer operating system developed by Apple.
To run traceroute, follow these steps:
For information on how to open your terminal, see the SSH for Mac OS X article.
Execute the command below.
$ traceroute example.com [server]
Another method is to utilize the Network Utility graphical tool (located and opened using Finder and search Applications):
In the top bar, click the Traceroute button.
Fill in the server’s name.
Select the Trace option from the drop-down menu.
The Traceroute results from Network Utility should look like this:
01 Traceroute.fw.png 02 Traceroute.fw.png 03 Traceroute.fw
Copying and pasting the results
You’ll need to put your results into your ticket if you want to share them with a support person.
Windows
Right-click in the Windows command prompt and select ‘Mark.’
Copy the entire area by dragging your mouse over it.
Right-click once more.
After that, you may paste it into any text editor or into your support ticket.
Another option is to have the traceroute results written to a text file directly.
Run the following command to save your traceroute results as a text file:
tracert example.com > C:UsersGreggHost> C:\tracert.txt
Within your C: folder, a file entitled tracert.txt is created. You have the option of saving the file in whatever folder you want.
Linux and Mac
You can use the following command to save the traceroute results to a file, and you can choose any location.
The results are written to a file named trace.txt in the user’s home directory in the following example. Replace username with your Shell username, and example.com with the URL of your website.