A traceroute, what is it and how do you run it?

The traceroute in a nutshell

Via a traceroute, you can follow the path (route) your computer takes when connecting to a server, but also to another computer. In fact, it is the same as driving a car from A to B, which you also do following a route. You can view the route via a traceroute, so you can see where things go wrong along the way. If you unexpectedly can no longer connect to a website or server, you can use a traceroute to see where the issue occurs.

In this article, we will explain how to perform a traceroute for both Mac and Windows.

A traceroute via Mac

You can perform a traceroute via Mac as follows: Press the keyboard combination Command (CMD) + space to open Spotlight. In the search bar, enter 'Terminal'. In the terminal, enter the following command:  

traceroute IP_Server

Replace IP_server here with the IP of the server.

A traceroute via Windows

Click the magnifying glass on the left in the taskbar and search for 'cmd'. Cmd is the command prompt where you need to enter a command.

Next, enter the following command:

tracert IP_server

Replace IP_server here with the IP of the server.