The Next Generation of Traceroute is Here

Let’s face it. Traceroute is not what it used to be.

Van Jacobson and Steve Deering created the original “Traceroute” in 1987. They discovered it by editing the IPv4 packet header’s TTL field, so that they could derive a path from the packets being taken from each network hop. Network professionals quickly realized how valuable this tool was in terms of solving daily network issues. However, in recent years, Traceroute has not scaled to adapt to modern technologies, and has lost most of its useful functionality.

We note the following issues: When probing the network, the ICMP and UDP packets are blocked. The paths that the tool indicates, often don’t exist. And, ridiculously enough, there is no history function available. Even Ping has that! The list of issues is so vast that we’ve actually been able to find scholarly journal articles on the subject.

What’s the good news? The good news is that SolarWinds fixed Traceroute, and is offering it for free!

SolarWinds Traceroute NG is a standalone free tool that effectively offers path analysis visibility via a CLI. By all standards, it’s a new, improved, and fully functional version of the older Traceroute generation tool. Yielding results in mere seconds, it provides an accurate single path from source to destination, and notifies users when the path is changed.

This new and improved version of Traceroute delivers the following information:

• Number of hops
• IP addresses
• Fully qualified domain names (FQDNs)
• Packet loss measured as a percentage
• Current latency and average latency (ms)
• Continuous probing that yields an iteration number for the user
• Probe type used (if TCP, it also shows the port probed)
• Issues (change in path, inability to reach destination)

SolarWinds Traceroute NG is able to get through firewalls, supports IPv6 networks, and can create a txt logfile containing the path number, probing time from source to destination, number of hops, IP addresses, FQDN, packet loss percentage, and average latency. It’s also able to copy data from the screen via the clipboard (copy/paste functionality), switch the probe type between ICMP and TCP using the switch command, and enable logging using the logging command, all while you’re probing simultaneously.

To sum it all up, Traceroute NG by SolarWinds brings back the power of the old Traceroute with new functionalities and capabilities that are adapted to modern technologies, so that you may once again reign supreme over the paths of your network, and never be lost when probing your long journey across the vast world wide web.

We hope you will enjoy this powerful new free tool. Click on the link below to download your Traceroute NG free tool by SolarWinds.

Traceroute NG Software - Download Free Traceroute Tool | SolarWinds

To find out more about what you can do with SolarWinds Traceroute NG, be sure to have a look at this article: Troubleshoot your network with a new free tool – Traceroute NG