Traceroutes & MTRs

What is a traceroute and an MTR?

Traceroute is a network diagnostic tool that displays the route from source to destination and measures the packet delay, or latency, at each step along the path.

MTR works like traceroute but keeps sending packets over time, giving better insight into how a network path fluctuates and a clearer overview of the complete route.

How do I run these?

Windows

Run traceroute with the built-in tracert command:

tracert <destination IP address>

Windows doesn't include a built-in MTR equivalent. WinMTR is one third-party tool that fills that gap: enter the destination as "host" and press start, it runs until you stop it manually.

Linux

Traceroute is built in. MTR is in most distributions’ package repositories, so install it first if the command isn’t found (for example apt install mtr or dnf install mtr).

traceroute <destination IP address>
sudo mtr -n <destination IP address>

macOS

Traceroute is built in. MTR is not, so install it first, for example with Homebrew.

brew install mtr
traceroute <destination IP address>
sudo mtr -n <destination IP address>

MTR needs raw socket access, so run it with sudo on macOS and on most Linux builds. Without it, the command fails on permissions.

A note on packet loss

Packet loss shown on Worldstream routers or transit hops along the way doesn't necessarily mean your service has a packet loss problem, especially if the destination itself shows 0% loss. This is often caused by ping limiters on routers along the path, rather than an actual service issue.

To check whether it affects you, look at the next hop after the one showing loss. If that hop shows 0% loss, the earlier result was most likely ICMP rate limiting, not a real problem.