The traceroute command was introduced with the release 10.0 of Cisco IOS and can be used to find the
route between IP devices. The traceroute command can be executed in user and privileged exec modes,
but in privileged exec mode, you can use the extended traceroute, which is more flexible and informative.
Initially, traceroute was available only for the IP protocol but since release 12.0 of Cisco IOS,
traceroute is also available for IPX. This command can be very useful in troubleshooting by determining
where along a particular network path a particular problem might be as the traceroute command displays a
hop-by-hop path through an IP network from the switch to a specific destination host. The syntax for the
traceroute command is:
traceroute [ -n ] [- w wait_time ] [ -i initial_ttl
] [ -m max_ttl ] [ -p dest_port ] [ -q nqueries ] [ -t tos ] ip_address
[ data_size ]
| Parameter |
Description |
| -n |
Prevents traceroute from performing a DNS lookup for each
hop on
the path. Only numerical IP addresses are printed. |
| -w wait_time |
Specifies the amount of time that traceroute will wait for
an ICMP
response message. The allowed range for wait time is 1 to 300
seconds; the default is 5. |
| -i initial_ttl |
Causes traceroute to send ICMP datagrams with a TTL value
equal to
initial_ttl instead of the default TTL of 1. This causes
traceroute to skip processing for hosts that are less than
initial_ttl hops away. |
| -m max_ttl |
Specifies the maximum TTL value for outgoing ICMP datagrams.
The allowed range is 1 to 255; the default value is 30. |
| -p dest_port |
Specifies the base UDP destination port number used in traceroute
data grams. This value is incremented each time a datagram is sent.
The allowed range is 1 to 65535; the default base port is 33434. |
| -q nqueries |
Specifies the number of datagrams to send for each TTL value.
The
allowed range is 1 to 1000; the default is 3. |
| -t tos |
Specifies the TOS to be set in the IP header of the outgoing
data grams. The allowed range is 0 to 255; the default is 0. |
| ip_address |
IP alias or IP address in dot notation of the destination
host. |
| Data_size |
Number of bytes, in addition to the default of 40 bytes,
of the
outgoing data grams. The allowed range is 0 to 1420; the default
is 0. |
TABLE 4.2: Parameters for the traceroute
Command