Traceroute is a common diagnostic tool for displaying the route (path) and measuring transit delays of packets across a network. The traceroute command is available on most modern operating systems.

CloudFlare Support will frequently ask for the output of a traceroute (you must have CloudFlare turned on) if you are experiencing connectivity issues. 

Windows

  1. Open the Start menu
  2. Click on Run
  3. Type cmd and then press the OK button to open a command prompt
  4. At the prompt, type tracert yourdomain.com and press the Enter key
  5. To copy the output, right-click anywhere in the window and select Mark. You can press Enter to copy all of the output, or select the text you want to copy and then right-click with your mouse. Paste the copied text by hitting CTRL + V.

Note: To traceroute IPv6 you would simply execute :  tracert -6 'your_domain_url'

Linux

  1. Open a terminal window
  2. Type traceroute yourdomain.com at the prompt and press the Enter key

Note: To traceroute IPv6 you would simply execute traceroute6 yourdomain.com

Mac OS

  1. Go to Applications -> Utilities -> Network Utility -> Traceroute
  2. Type the domain or IP address in the appropriate input field and press Trace. You can also open a terminal window and use the same instructions as you would for performing a traceroute in Linux.

Note: To traceroute IPv6 you would simply execute traceroute6 yourdomain.com

Understanding the Output

The basic idea is self-explanatory. The first line represents your home router (assuming you’re behind a router), the next lines represent your ISP, and each line further down represents a router that’s further away.

The format of each line is as follows:

Hop RTT1 RTT2 RTT3 Domain Name [IP Address]

  • Hop: Whenever a packet is passed between a router, this is referred to as a “hop.” For example, in the output above, we can see that it takes 14 hops to reach How-To Geek’s servers from my current location.
  • RTT1, RTT2, RTT3: This is the round-trip time that it takes for a packet to get to a hop and back to your computer (in milliseconds). This is often referred to as latency, and is the same number you see when using ping. Traceroute sends three packets to each hop and displays each time, so you have some idea of how consistent (or inconsistent) the latency is. If you see a * in some columns, you didn’t receive a response – which could indicate packet loss.
  • Domain Name [IP Address]: The domain name, if available, can often help you see the location of a router. If this isn’t available, only the IP address of the router is displayed.