Post #4 – Traveling Through a Network: Ping VS Traceroute.

Week 3: Using the ping and traceroute commands offered valuable insights into how data packets travel through the network. When a ping command is executed, the computer sends small ICMP packets to a specified destination. These packets then travel through various routers until they reach their target, and a reply is sent back. This process helps measure the roundtrip time between the source and the destination, allowing users to evaluate connection speed and reliability.

Traceroute works differently by identifying each network hop a packet takes to reach its destination. It increases the Time-To-Live (TTL) value with each packet, mapping out the full path and showing where delays or failures occur. Based on the results, all successfully pinged sites including google.com, google.com.mx and google.com.au —had average roundtrip times around 49 to 51 ms, despite being tied to different countries. This suggests that Google uses local servers to minimize latency, making geographical location less impactful in this case.

The traceroute outputs revealed different network paths to each destination. For example, the route to google.com.mx had more stable hop times, while the route to google.com.au included more consistent mid-route delays. In several cases, the traceroute ended with multiple timeouts before reaching the final IP address. Despite these delays, the destination was still reached, indicating that the timeout likely occurred due to security restrictions on intermediary routers or firewalls.

There is usually a relationship between roundtrip time and physical distance, but large global networks like Google often minimize this through regional caching and server routing. Still, some geographic distance or congested network segments may increase latency.

Ping and traceroute are essential tools for diagnosing network issues. Ping checks if a host is reachable and measures response time. Traceroute identifies the path and locates where delays or failures happen.

Two common reasons for timeouts or error messages in these commands are: (1) routers or firewalls blocking ICMP traffic for security purposes, and domain name resolution errors due to incorrect or non-existent hostnames.

Overall, these tools provide a clearer picture of how data flows across networks and help troubleshoot connectivity issues effectively.

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