Traceroute (and Biff)

My attempt at using Traceroute from centralops.net to curtin.edu.au went well and after doing this task it gave me cause to ask a question but more on that (and Biff) in a minute...

The chart below shows the number of hops from centralops.net to curtin.edu.au was 19 and the average time for the packet journey was 235ms. The IP number for curtin.edu.au is 134.7.179.56

You know after all of this tracing and erm routing, I have one question. Why would anyone use traceroute? I mean, what use is it to anyone?

Well, it’s definitely a tool used for diagnosing network communication problems such as delays and even non-delivery of information. As a non-network-administrator I can’t imagine any reason why I’d want to do this, but traceroute turned out to be more interesting than I first thought.

It was interesting to note that each router doesn’t always pick the most direct route to take – it will send your packet to the fastest node or hop which might be further in human distance but actually quicker. Sounds obvious to me now, but initially the visual perspective like a map image of the path traceroute travels will have you screwed because we look at a map of the world and think wow, that’s a long way. Follow this link if you're keen to self hypnotise --> Routers use algorithms - Routers logically hop between each other, from one to the next, based on speed, not distance.

There’s more to Traceroute but I’m at risk of following my nose and ending up at YouTube or TechCrunch or Biffs place. I stopped after viewing this video about Home Network Routers (http://www.labrats.tv/episodes/ep65.html). The video gets interesting once Biff the cat arrives (after +/- 4mins), didn’t learn a thing from the video after he arrived, I'm easily entertained!