Documentation forSolarWinds

TracerouteNG tool

The TracerouteNG tool in ETS for the Desktop shows you the path network traffic takes from your PC to a target server or device and displays information about the devices it discovers. TracerouteNG adds real-time response time and packet loss information.

After a route is learned, Trace Route remembers the route and details about it. Because the routes are remembered, TracerouteNG can show you route and failing devices whenever part of the network is down. Each hop in the selected path is traced and processed concurrently.

Open the TracerouteNG tool

  • To launch the tool from the Toolset Launch Pad, locate the TracerouteNG tool and click Launch.

  • You can add the tool to a tab in the Workspace Studio, and access it from there.

  • To launch the tool from the Windows Start menu:

    1. Click Start > All > SolarWinds Engineer's Toolset.

    2. Right-click TraceRouteNG, click More, and click Run as administrator.

TracerouteNG opens in a command prompt with the TracrouteNG command options displayed.

The first time you open TracerouteNG, review the license agreement and accept if you agree.

TracerouteNG options

The following optional parameters are available for the traceng command:

Parameter Description
-a

Specify the action to take if the path changes:

  • Notify (default)
  • Terminate
  • Warn
-d Enter this parameter if you do not want TracerouteNG to resolve the IP address to the host name.
-i

Specify the version of the IP address:

  • IPv4 (default)
  • IPv6
-l Enter this parameter to log the TracerouteNG results to a file.
-m Specify the maximum number of hops. The default is 30.
-p Use this parameter to specify a specific TCP port on the target device.
-r Specify the number of times TracerouteNG should probe the device. By default, it probes continuously.
-s

Select the scan type:

  • TCP (default)
  • ICMP
-w Specify the maximum amount of time to wait in milliseconds. The default is 500.
--h

--help

Enter either of these parameters to display the list of options.

Start a trace route

In the command prompt that opens when you start TracerouteNG, enter any optional parameters followed by the IP address of the target device. For example, the following command includes the parameter to limit the number of probes to 20.

TracerouteNG displays information about each hop in the route, including the percent loss, the time during the latest probe, and the average time.

Stop tracing

During a trace route, you can enter either of the following:

  • -q: Stops the current trace and closes TracerouteNG.

  • -s: Stops the current trace and opens the original command prompt, where you can start a different trace route.