DESCRIPTION
traceroute tracks the route packets take across a TCP/IP network on their way to a given host.

See traceroute command in Linux also.

How it works??

• Tracert utility uses the ttl field of ip packet header to accomplish its goal. TTL field(usually set to 32 or 64) tells us the number of hops a packet will have travel to reach to its destination host.
• Each time a packet passes a hop, the ttl value is decreased by one and when the TTL value at an intermediate hop (router) becomes 1, the packet is discarded.
• Traceroute requires the same and it incrementally gives the ip addresses of the hops through which the packet passes.
• It utilizes the IP protocol's time to live (TTL) field and attempts to elicit an ICMP TIME_EXCEEDED response from each gateway along the path to the host.
• We have to supply only name or IP address of the destination host. This paremeter can be followed by the size of the probing packet [packetlen] sent to that host (40 by default).
• By default this command will use first ttl as 1, maximum 30 hops. port no. as 33434 and packates of length 40 byte using UDP protocol

Usage: tracert [-d] [-h maximum_hops] [-j host-list] [-w timeout]
               [-R] [-S srcaddr] [-4] [-6] target_name

Options:
    -d                 Do not resolve addresses to hostnames.
    -h maximum_hops    Maximum number of hops to search for target.
    -j host-list       Loose source route along host-list (IPv4-only).
    -w timeout         Wait timeout milliseconds for each reply.
    -R                 Trace round-trip path (IPv6-only).
    -S srcaddr         Source address to use (IPv6-only).
    -4                 Force using IPv4.
    -6                 Force using IPv6.

Examples:

C:\Users\shankar_bhagat>tracert 10.219.202.17

Tracing route to HYDPCM316109D.ad.infosys.com [10.219.202.17]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  HYDPCM316109D.ad.infosys.com [10.219.202.17]

Trace complete.

• If you dont want to resolve ip addresses to ip name, use option "-d". 

C:\Users\shankar_bhagat>tracert -d 10.219.202.17

Tracing route to 10.219.202.17 over a maximum of 30 hops

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  10.219.202.17

Trace complete.