* Readers describe how they use ping and tracert
We recently wrote about the diminishing usability of “ping” and “tracert” due to the use of these commands as components of various types of network attacks. We also expressed our dismay that by abusing these tools, the hackers were winning and we were losing. This week we’ll share some of the responses that we received from you with your experiences, starting with a technically oriented comment.
A reader wrote: “I agree with your conclusion that it is sad we are gradually losing the usefulness of these tools. In our network support team we still regularly use both utilities, both on our own LANs and WANs, but also on the Internet and extranet.
“We do come across instances where ICMP [Internet Control Message Protocol] has been turned off on network devices, which can render ping useless, but not necessarily trace route (tracert). On occasion we see the route trace complete, but with blank hops recorded, which indicates a router with ICMP messaging disabled on the path. If you are patient therefore, you can often reach a destination with trace route when it may appear that you aren’t going to. This is because the trace packet itself is not an ICMP one.
“For the DOS variant of the utility, I find the -d flag helps to speed up the whole process, as it prevents IP address to name resolution attempts, i.e., the command is entered as: tracert acme.com –d.”
We tried this variant, and found that it does indeed speed up the process.
Three additional points:
1) You may find that a ping to a given address (or domain name) does not work because the host does not respond to ping, but that a tracert still gives a reasonable idea of what the response is along the majority of the hops in the network path.
2) If you’re using the DOS version and you want to know about additional options in addition to the tracert –d function mentioned above, simply type “ping /?” and “tracert /?” for a list of available options, providing admittedly limited help.
3) OK. None of you would *ever* forget the IP address that you reassigned to your soho router. But, just in case you did, a tracert should show you that address, which you can usually use for administrative functions in the format http://[the_IP_address]. (And now you also know why we use that strange notation.)
