Cloudflare Traceroute/My Traceroute(MTR) combines traceroute and ping to monitor a network path’s health. At Bobcares, with our Server Management Service, we can handle your Cloudflare concerns.

Cloudflare Traceroute

Traceroute: Traceroute identifies problems in a network path. Traceroute also understands the path IP packets are taking from the source IP address to the destination IP address). The command traceroute or tracert helps to understand:

• The path of the packets, including the IP addresses of each router.
• The Round Trip Time between the source and each hop, or router the packets pass through, in the network path.

A Traceroute Example: traceroute to 1.1.1.1 (1.1.1.1), 64 hops max, 52-byte packets

Cloudflare Traceroute/MTR: A utility called My Traceroute (MTR) combines traceroute and ping, another popular technique for gauging network connectivity and speed. MTR displays continuously updated data regarding the latency and packet loss along the journey to the destination in addition to the hops along the network path. This makes it easier to diagnose network problems since it gives us a real-time view of what is happening along the path.

MTR works by similarly discovering the network path to traceroute, and then regularly sending packets to continue collecting information to provide an updated view into the network’s health and speed.

Like Traceroute, MTR can use ICMP or UDP for outgoing packets but relies on ICMP for return (Type 11: Time Exceeded) packets.

Traceroute Working

A Traceroute tool sends packets to a destination IP with a time-to-live (TTL) set to 1 so that the first router the packets reach will send back an error, “time exceeded”. When the error returns, the Traceroute tool records the first router’s identity and round-trip time, increments the TTL, and sends new packets, repeating this process until the last packet reaches the destination IP or two sets of packets are dropped.

Thus Traceroute helps to understand the path the packets are taking and the roundtrip time to each hop so that we can fix the packet loss and latency. Traceroute uses the ICMP protocol, a network layer protocol for error checking. Running directly on the Internet Protocol, it lacks a corresponding transport protocol (IP). The router returns an ICMP Type 11 (Time Exceeded Error) packet when the TTL of a packet sent by the Traceroute utility is exceeded.

Outgoing packets can use ICMP or UDP depending upon the OS. Choosing a different protocol for outgoing Traceroute packets is one way to get more complete results if routers along the network path are configured to filter out packets of a certain protocol.

Cloudflare Traceroute Options

1. TCP MTR: Use TCP rather than ICMP transmissions. A destination port is an additional option.
2. UDP MTR: Opt for UDP rather than ICMP. This can be done to test a particular port or get around routers that block ICMP packets.
3. Show IPs: Displays IP addresses alongside each hop’s records. This makes upstream issue reporting simpler.
4. AS Lookup: Displays the AS number in the MTR.

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Conclusion

In this article, our Support team explains the Cloudflare Traceroute details, including the various options it has.