Monday, March 17, 2025

Traveling Through a Network


   
Ping and Traceroute help diagnose internet connection issues. Both commands send packets through a network; Ping ensures the packets reach the destination, requesting a response and calculating the roundtrip time in milliseconds. In comparison, a Traceroute sends packets to the destination and maps (or traces) their path, showing each router/hop they hit along the way and giving a more detailed idea of where a connection was unsuccessful regarding a connection issue. These insights allow for a troubleshooter to determine if there is an issue with the connection between the computers and where that issue may lie, allowing for a more advanced look into the device's connection. 

    When running the Ping command for domains hosted in different regions, such as Australia and Japan, the results reflect the additional roundtrip time of the packet. While News Australia (Avg. 22ms) only slightly differed when compared to Google (Avg. 17ms), Yahoo Japan (Avg. 194ms) showed a much more significant increase. Even with the difference in ping, all three domains did not return any errors, showing they were able to send and echo back successfully within the required timeframe. 

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    When running the Tracert command on the same domains, I found that Google showed the highest number of hops along the way (22), many of which resulted in a request timeout due to routers not providing a response within the provided time frame. News AU (4 hops) and Japan (15 hops) did show a lower number of hops, though roundtrip time was still higher.

    This shows that geographical location does not directly determine the number of hops a packet must travel through to reach the final IP. Additional factors such as congestion, hardware, policies, and infrastructure also impact the path taken and the results we see (Traceroute, n.d). 

 

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References

Traceroute (Tracert): What Does it Do and How to Run a Command? (n.d.). https://www.bluehost.com/help/article/traceroute-tracert#interpret




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