howtofindtheip.com

IP Traceroute: How to Trace a Connection's Route

Traceroute shows every router your data passes through between your device and any destination — and where the journey slows down. Here's how to run it on any system and actually read the output.

What traceroute does

Every packet travelling across the internet carries a hop limit — the TTL (time to live) on IPv4, or hop limit on IPv6. Each router that forwards the packet decrements it by one; when it hits zero, the router drops the packet and politely sends back a "time exceeded" message.

Traceroute weaponises this politely: it sends packets with TTL 1, then 2, then 3… Each "time exceeded" reply that comes back reveals the address of one more router along the way. String them together and you get the full path from you to the destination — with timings.

Running it on your system

Windows — tracert

Press Win + R, type cmd, hit Enter, then run:

Command Prompt
tracert howtofindtheip.com

# By IP address instead of name:
tracert 1.1.1.1

macOS & Linux — traceroute

Terminal
traceroute howtofindtheip.com

# macOS may need the full path or installation:
/usr/sbin/traceroute howtofindtheip.com   # macOS
sudo apt install traceroute               # Debian/Ubuntu

The better way — mtr

mtr (My Traceroute) combines traceroute and ping in a live view — far more informative for diagnosing jitter and loss. Available for Linux, macOS (via brew install mtr) and Windows (WinMTR).

Terminal
mtr howtofindtheip.com
# Press 'q' to quit

Reading the results

A typical output looks like this:

Example output
 1  router.home          1.2 ms  1.0 ms  1.1 ms      # your router
 2  isp-gw.net          12.4 ms 12.1 ms 12.3 ms      # your ISP
 3  backbone1.net       21.0 ms 20.8 ms 21.2 ms      # regional network
 4  * * *                                            # silent router (normal)
 5  edge-server.net     23.9 ms 24.1 ms 23.8 ms
 6  howtofindtheip.com  24.0 ms 23.7 ms 23.9 ms      # destination
  • Hop number — how many routers deep the probe reached.
  • Hostname / IP — the router that replied (PTR names often hint at the city or carrier).
  • Three timings — round-trip times of the three probes. What matters is the trend: a sudden jump that persists in later hops usually marks the slow segment.

High latency in early hops (your ISP) affects everything; high latency appearing late in the path is often just congestion near the destination. Want to check the reputation of one of the hops you found? Paste its IP into our blacklist checker or locate it on the map.

Why hops time out

Asterisks (* * *) mean the router didn't answer that probe. Common, and usually harmless:

  • Many routers are configured to ignore traceroute probes entirely (rate limiting or security policy).
  • Firewalls drop the UDP or ICMP packets traceroute uses.
  • The router prioritises forwarding over replying to diagnostic traffic.

Rule of thumb: timeouts in the middle of a trace are fine as long as later hops keep responding. If every hop after a certain point times out and the final destination never answers, that hop is where your connection actually breaks — invaluable information when arguing with an ISP's support line.

Why no website can traceroute you

A browser is deliberately sandboxed: JavaScript cannot send the raw packets or read the ICMP replies traceroute requires. Any "online traceroute" you find runs from the provider's servers to the target — useful, but it measures a different path than your own device's.

What you can do in the browser: identify yourself and your path's endpoints. Find your public IP, then look up its reverse DNS to see the hostname your ISP assigned to your line — the same kind of name traceroute shows for each hop.

FAQ

Traceroute questions

What does an IP traceroute show?

Traceroute lists every router (hop) your packets pass through between your device and a destination, with the round-trip time of each hop. It reveals where a connection slows down or breaks.

Why do some traceroute hops show asterisks or time out?

Many routers are configured not to answer traceroute probes, and firewalls commonly block them. Asterisks on intermediate hops are normal and harmless — what matters is whether the final destination responds.

Can I run a traceroute from a website?

A browser cannot send the raw packets traceroute needs, so it cannot be done client-side. Web-based traceroutes exist, but they measure the route from the website's servers to the target — not from your device. From a browser you can still find your public IP and its reverse DNS.