Network Working Group G. Malkin
Request for Comments: 1393 Xylogics, Inc.
January 1993
Traceroute Using an IP Option
Status of this Memo
This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet
community. Discussion and suggestions for improvement are requested.
Please refer to the current edition of the "IAB Official Protocol
Standards" for the standardization state and status of this protocol.
Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Abstract
Traceroute serves as a valuable network debugging tool. The way in
which it is currently implemented has the advantage of being
automatically supported by all of the routers. It's two problems are
the number of packets it generates and the amount of time it takes to
run.
This document specifies a new IP option and ICMP message type which
duplicates the functionality of the existing traceroute method while
generating fewer packets and completing in a shorter time.
Table of Contents
1. Traceroute Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Traceroute Tomorrow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2.1 Basic Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2.2 IP Traceroute option format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.3 ICMP Traceroute message format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.1 Hop Counts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2 Destination Node Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.3 Router Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6. Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Malkin