Troubleshooting Network Connectivity with Traceroute

Traceroute can help you find out why your Internet is slow or not working. Traceroute shows you the path that your data takes from your device to the website you’re trying to use.

Here’s how you can use the traceroute command to fix your Internet problems.

1. Open a command prompt or terminal: On Windows, you can open the Command Prompt by clicking the Start button and typing “cmd”. On Mac press CMD Space to open Spotlight Search. In Linux, you can open the terminal by clicking the magnifying glass icon and typing “terminal”.

2. Type the traceroute command followed by the website or service you’re trying to use: For example, if you’re trying to go to Google, type “traceroute www.google.com” and press Enter.

3. Look at the output: The traceroute command will show you a list of devices that your data passes through on its way to the website or service. The first column shows the number of the device. The second column shows the address of the device. The third column shows how long it takes for your data to reach the device (in milliseconds).

4. Find the problem: If you see a long time or a star (*) in the third column, that means there is a problem with that device. You can tell your network administrator or Internet provider about this problem and they can fix it.

By using the traceroute command, you can see how your data travels through the Internet and where it gets stuck or delayed.

This can help you solve your Internet problems faster and easier. Traceroute is a handy tool for everyone to troubleshoot network connectivity issues.

#### what does it mean when a hop replies with three asterisks?

When running the traceroute command, if a hop or router along the path replies with three asterisks (***) instead of a round-trip time value, the router has filtered or blocked the ICMP replies.

1. Firewall or security settings: Some routers or firewalls are configured to block ICMP messages for security reasons. In this case, the router may be dropping the "Time Exceeded" message sent by the traceroute command.

2. Network congestion or high traffic: If the router is experiencing high traffic or network congestion, it may be dropping the ICMP messages due to limited resources.

3. Misconfigured router: In some cases, the router may be misconfigured and not responding to the ICMP messages.