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Puzzling Traceroute output

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Special Forums IP Networking Puzzling Traceroute output
# 1  
Old 07-30-2009
Puzzling Traceroute output
This is the output that I get every so often when trying to do a traceroute to the web server whenever it's inaccessible:


Code:
traceroute to 64.40.98.181 (64.40.98.181), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets 
1 207.97.207.194 (207.97.207.194) 2.625 ms 2.840 ms 2.968 ms 
2 core1-5.iad1.rackspace.com (69.20.2.18) 0.290 ms 0.356 ms 0.849 ms 
3 vlan901.edge3.iad1.rackspace.com (69.20.1.3) 0.845 ms 0.848 ms 1.091 ms 
4 bbr1.iad1.rackspace.net (69.20.2.193) 0.817 ms 1.052 ms 1.049 ms 
5 rt0as-equinix.vx.shawcable.net (206.223.115.20) 1.053 ms 1.172 ms 1.168 ms 
6 rc2as-ge2-0-0.vx.shawcable.net (66.163.64.2) 1.014 ms 0.590 ms 0.624 ms 
7 rc1nr-pos0-8-0-0.wp.shawcable.net (66.163.77.93) 52.483 ms 52.480 ms 52.469 ms 
8 rc2so-pos0-8-5-0.cg.shawcable.net (66.163.76.193) 69.078 ms 69.061 ms 69.065 ms 
9 rc2wh-pos0-15-5-0.vc.shawcable.net (66.163.76.186) 82.930 ms 82.912 ms 82.917 ms
10 ra2wh-tge2-1.vc.shawcable.net (66.163.69.186) 154.364 ms 154.584 ms 154.582 ms
11 rx0wh-net-nation.vc.bigpipeinc.com (64.251.87.170) 80.240 ms 80.221 ms 80.402 ms
12 64.40.105.25 (64.40.105.25) 80.454 ms 80.628 ms 80.816 ms
13 * * *
14 * * *
15 * * *
16 * * *
17 * * *
18 * hostwaydcs.com (64.40.103.106) 78.438 ms 78.419 ms

Could anyone offer an explanation why hops 13-17 are timing out yet hop 18 shows up? And Hop 18 isn't even the destination IP? Thanks!
Last edited by DukeNuke2; 07-30-2009 at 05:05 PM..
# 2  
Old 07-30-2009
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# 3  
Old 07-30-2009
13-17 are probably hosts that do not answer ICMP echo requests or send ICMP TTL timeouts.
Host 18 is probably a host with multiple interfaces, all connected to the same router, and it answers through whatever interface that's first available.
# 4  
Old 07-30-2009
Thanks pludi.
So I pretty much get a traceroute like this whenever the site w/ IP 64.40.98.181 is inaccessible (seems to happen once every few weeks or so). If the site is working fine, I get a normal traceroute.
Can any conclusions be drawn from this traceroute to pinpoint what could be causing the sporadic outages?
# 5  
Old 07-30-2009
Not really. traceroute isn't really for endpoint checking, but rather testing the network between two nodes.
Meaning: you can check whether the host at the other end is the problem or if a component in between fails.
# 6  
Old 07-30-2009
Sorry, not to belabor the point but here's the traceroute output for the same IP when the site is up (note that I'm doing the traceroute from a different location but the last couple of hops is my concern here):

Code:
1    1 1 0   70.84.211.97 61.d3.5446.static.theplanet.com 
2    0 0 0   70.87.254.1 po101.dsr01.dllstx5.theplanet.com 
3    1 0 0   70.85.127.105 po51.dsr01.dllstx3.theplanet.com 
4    0 0 0   70.87.253.9 et3-1.ibr04.dllstx3.theplanet.com 
5   40 40 40   70.87.253.193 c1.fd.5746.static.theplanet.com 
6   40 40 41   206.223.116.20 rt0sj-equinix.cl.shawcable.net 
7   73 73 73   66.163.77.69 rc2bb-pos0-7-2-0.vc.shawcable.net 
8   63 64 63   66.163.69.190 ra2wh-tge1-1.vc.shawcable.net 
9   64 64 64   64.251.87.170 rx0wh-net-nation.vc.bigpipeinc.com 
10  63 63 63   64.40.105.25  
11  64 63 64   64.40.98.181 hostwaydcs.com

Here, the device at 64.40.105.25 routes to the final destination correctly. Whereas, in the first traceroute i posted, it goes through 5 hosts that don't respond to pings then ends up at a host w/ a different IP. Does this mean 64.40.105.25 is the problem?
# 7  
Old 07-31-2009
3 ideas:
  • someone is playing with the routing table of 64.40.105.25
  • the destination host has 2 interfaces, one of which is failing intermittently, and the router tries an alternative route
  • another router is sending out wrong routing information (via BGP, IGMP, ...), either maliciously or because it's configured wrong
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