Ping and traceroute

Okay...next step in module 1...learn about traceroute. So I visited the site 'how stuff works' and read the article 'how routers work'. Okay, so that all makes sense....then I went to the article on tracing a message and saw an example of a traceroute. They suggested using tracert which should already be on my pc....so I tried typing tracert into google. Found an interesting site with more info on ping and traceroute but they wanted $ for the privilege of using their tools. Decided to stick with one of the sites suggested in the study guide...network-tools. Typed in 'curtin.edu.au' and off it went.....

So on my count that's 18 hops (the 19th being the curtin server). It took about 2.54 seconds to get from the tools site to the curtin server. The IP of the hostname curtin.edu.au is 134.7.179.56.

Thought I may as well test out tracert, since it is apparently already on my computer...and it worked! Had to figure out how to get to DOS on this laptop ("command prompt"), then typed in tracert 'http://www.curtin.edu.au/ and got a slightly different result. Only 12 hops and an average of 1.8 seconds! Interesting.

Comparison...the last six hops were identical with both. The trace from my laptop went via my ISP and was pretty quick to find Curtin.