By going to the following URL you can do a trace route to a number of different hosts at once. But how can you do a trace to a server that isn't on their list?

http://www.tracert.com/cgi-bin/trace.pl

Can anyone tell me how many hops is considered good? How many ms is good?

Any other comments welcome.

Ideally the less no. of hops the better (though it's not a major factor); the lower the no. of ms the better (when compared against different hosts).

Other places to do traceroutes :

http://www.samspade.org
http://www.traceroute.org

I have visited three of these sites, the ones you mentioned and tracert and just can't seem to figure out how to trace from IP A to IP B. SamSpade didn't seem to work at all unless I am not doing it right.

The fewer the no. of hops, the fewer the no. of places for there to be a failure.

Oh.... Hang on. Which IP are you trying to trace from??? Do you mean a remote server to another, or what....

In comparing hosts, I want to consider more than just price and service. I want a host that has the fewest number of hops etc. between their servers and a number of different points in Japan (where my clients are).

How do I go about it?

Ahhhhhh, now I get you. You won't be able to do that unless you have access to your clients' machines. The network protocols are such that they won't allow you to try and do traceroutes from one remote server to another unless you have access to one of the two servers in question. (in this case, your clients' machines)

Hope that answers your query.

Ron, are you trying to get server C to do a traceroute between A and B? If that's the case, I am not aware of any service that does that. I am not sure if it's really possible at all.

Ok so I can't do that. But can you explain this:

Please go to http://www.tracert.com/cgi-bin/trace.pl

You will see an input box at the top for you to input your IP if it isn't already done for you. Then you can check the boxes below for the servers you want it to trace from. Then click "start trace."

No problem, it works fine. However, what about doing this with the hosts that are NOT on the list? How is that done?

Keep in mind that the trace is just between your client's site and the client's server. How other people (i.e. your client's customers) get to your client's site almost certainly will be a different route and therefore possible (probably) more hops.

You can not perform a traceroute between two remote machines unless you have specific access to one of the machines, kinda figures :). The reason you traceroute from 50 different hosts (at tracert.com) TO any host you like is because the script running on the site has access rights to them 50 machines and hence can run a tracert from them machines and send you the output back.

You enter in yahoo.com in the trace text box.
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Tracert.com webserver receives the request and passes it to a CGI script, executables, php script or whatever....
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The CGI script makes a call to one of the 50 servers, maybe
it's a http call (http://tracert:tracepass@myuni.edu.us/local/runtracepl?to=yahoo.com) or maybe it open a port on the server and send the request that way. Either way the starting server has special software installed to allow tracert.com to run the traceroute command from it remotely, I guess they need passwords to access them as well (hidden in the CGI) hence the reason why you have to go through tracert.com.
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The CGI receives the output back from one of the 50 servers.
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CGI passes information back to webserver.
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Webserver passes it back to you.

You can not choose any server to start with, imagine the security problems, possible DOS attacks and other implications that it would cause if you run the traceroute command from ANY server.

Originally posted by Ron
I have visited three of these sites, the ones you mentioned and tracert and just can't seem to figure out how to trace from IP A to IP B. SamSpade didn't seem to work at all unless I am not doing it right.

Sam Spade, for whatever reason, is on what appears to be a really slow server. I prefer http://network-tools.com myself.

SamSpade's recently been hit by quite a few DoS attacks...

Ron, those servers in the list are the ones which allow you to run traceroute on them. You have the freedom to enter the destination IP only, but you can not have free access to any server. Think of it this way, your TV can receive any signal, but you have to have access to the TV broadcasting station to broadcast a specific signal. The IP you enter is the receiver, and the other servers are the transmitters.

I hope it's a bit clearer