Trace Routes

[wrathoftank]

Hi there, just received my Netduma R1 today and although my host choices have been extremely limited so far (thanks to xbl and psn issues), I have noticed that when I do connect the trace routes look kind of odd, at least to someone like me with limited knowledge of networking.  You can see below in the pictures that the routes head further away from the host and then back toward the host.  Is this a normal route?  Is this a problem with my isp or his ISP?

 

Thanks for any help or advice!

[faulko]

Um how can i say this.mmmmmm

 

your internet is not a straight line, it follows wires/fibre or wifi/microwave towers  to servers that hop through other servers which adds ms each time the packet/s is processed.

The more network your isp is connected to or allowed to use the straighter the path your packets can take. But this doesnt mean its a faster path, some isp have their servers setup very weird, like if your on the east coast, the isp send all your traffic through a pacific server before returning to a server 2 towns from you, why you ask, well i cant tell you that only your rsp can.

Some isp have alot of hops some have little.

think of it as roadways, if your rsp is only allowed to use a certain sections of highway, these sections of highway may not be the fastest route. It may have many intersection (hops) to cross or turn at before reaching the destination.

A ping to your neighbour can be high (say 100ms) but your mate on the same isp as you but 2-3 towns away can be much much lower, this is the next main issue with internet and gaming relying on fast ping for packets, its not always possible to match players on ping alone, the game should have this as a first check but they dont. Why is beyond me.

Im still xmas alcohol sick i hope i made sense.

 

[Guest Netduma_Iain]

Firstly thanks for purchasing, secondly happy holidays!

 

Faulko is correct,

 

Also please don't read too much into traceroute. ISPs do loads of funny things that can make the traceroute incorrect in some instances. Ping is king when it comes to gaming

[abc123]

Trivia Question (no netduma admins allowed!):

 

How does trace route work?

 

Hint 1:

 

Packet TTL or Time to Live is involved

 

 

Hint 2:

 

Trace Route sends a packet to every router from you to the destination

 

 

Answer:

 

 

When you run a trace route, a packet is generated with a TTL of 1.  When it hits the first router (node) it decrements the TTL by 1 and if it is 0 it returns a packet expired to you.

To find the next router it makes the TTL 2, then it decrements to 1 for the previous first router and then 0 when it hits the next router.  Once again, this returns a packet expired to you.

 

It continues doing this until it has reached the destination provided, incrementing the TTL by 1.

 

 

[faulko]

Sorry my bad

[wrathoftank]

Thanks for the responses.  I knew about some of these things mentioned, however I guess I just thought that the routes would be slightly more direct.  I won't read to much into because as Iain said, ping is king.