Traceroute utilities

[__philippe]

Greetings everyone,
(While this post covers programs already in PFC database, the next closely related post is indeed about new suggestions)

Heeding Midas' gentle prodding, here is an recommendation which first saw light in the comments section related to Nirsoft's CountryTraceroute program:

Among the four network utilities currently listed on PFC board which include a traceroute function
(namely: CountryTraceRoute | 3D Traceroute | Etoolz | HoverIP), the one I recommend is Nirsoft's CountryTraceRoute,
for its small size, blinding fast execution, and informative Geographic city/country data displayed for each hop traversed.

3D Traceroute, however, has one distinctive feature not found in ANY other networking freeware anywhere
(except for the little-known Vtrace from http://vtrace.pl):
its traceroute will look up and display the ASN (Autonomous System) number for each hop traversed.
(The ASN is used to identify each network carrier along the trace.)

Wish Nirsoft would also integrate this rare capability into their excellent CountryTraceroute in future release.

Perhaps if enough current users show interest, Nir will oblige ?

__philippe

[I am Baas]

@__philippe

Thanks.

About Vtrace , requires .net 2 framework to run + admin rights + it'sfreeware but ad supported.

[__philippe]

Little-known freeware Traceroute utilities: vTrace and Trout

In the category of forgotten oldies-but-goodies, besides vTrace cited before, i would like to mention another real jewel:
Robin Keir's tiny Trout traceroute.

Written circa 2000, this minuscule (33k) program is still running with aplomb 13 years later (under Win XP, at least), just as fast as Nirsoft's CountryTraceroute,
and boasts a built-in Whois lookup to boot. Admittedly, it does lack Nirsoft Trace more polished user interface and nifty hosts name Geographical information lookup.

vTrace, on the other hand, fits more in the medium-weight category (< 1M), but offers multiple additional functions(usually restricted to commercial software),
such as: Ping, Whois, DNS records, animated path tracing over geographic map, and, most notably, the elusive but crucial ASN number and network provider name look up.

Both well worth a try and consideration for inclusion on PFC hall of fame:

Trout http://www.mcafee.com/us/downloads/free ... trout.aspx

vTrace http://vtrace.pl/download.html
(see caveats in Baas comments above; please note the sponsor ad in the running program is limited to a rather unobstrusive 1x3cm logo in the window top right corner)

__philippe

[I am Baas]

I could not get trout to run on win 7.64

[guinness]

Worked for me in Sandboxie on Windows 7 x64.

[I am Baas]

Worked for me in Sandboxie on Windows 7 x64.

Sorry, I wasn't clear... I get it to launch and it shows "Trace started Initial ping" message at the bottom but nothing happens after that.

[guinness]

You typed a URL in the input box and selected go?

[I am Baas]

See image

[__philippe]

I could not get trout to run on win 7.64

mmmmh...rather unfortunate, sorry about that. I have used Trout only under Win XP, as mentioned in OP.

__philippe

[__philippe]

Trout 2.0 traceroute has been running like a champ under Win XP for ages (on my machine and, I presume, umpteen others as well).

Tested under Win 7 by two PFC members, however, Trout was found to be working fine on a first machine, while stalling on a second one.

Anyone else interested to try and run Trout 2.0 under Win 7 ?

__philippe

http://www.mcafee.com/us/downloads/free ... trout.aspx

[JohnTHaller]

I can confirm that Trout 2.0 fails to work on Windows 7 x64 Ultimate for me.

I nearly forgot that when I discovered this we worked with the publisher of WinMTR to make it portable. It's a great traceroute+ping utility:
http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/winmtr_portable

[I am Baas]

I can confirm that Trout 2.0 fails to work on Windows 7 x64 Ultimate for me.<br sab="727"><br sab="728">I nearly forgot that when I discovered this we worked with the publisher of WinMTR to make it portable. It's a great traceroute+ping utility:<br sab="729">http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/winmtr_portable

Thanks, JohnTHaller

WinMTR does not work on Win 7.64 either (ICMP DLL error).

[I am Baas]

WinMTR works ok. It is a Sandboxie issue.

[JohnTHaller]

WinMTR works ok. It is a Sandboxie issue.

Ah, good to know, though another odd outlier Sandboxie case. I know I'd specifically tested WinMTR on Windows x64 initially and it's the only tracerout tool I currently use (on my Win7 x64 box). I used to use Trout all the time back before McAfee picked it up and was pretty bummed that it didn't work on x64. It was also a bit odd that McAfee picked it up and then abandoned it, but we've all seen that happen with acquired software.

[I am Baas]

WinMTR works ok. It is a Sandboxie issue.

Ah, good to know, though another odd outlier Sandboxie case. I know I'd specifically tested WinMTR on Windows x64 initially and it's the only tracerout tool I currently use (on my Win7 x64 box). I used to use Trout all the time back before McAfee picked it up and was pretty bummed that it didn't work on x64. It was also a bit odd that McAfee picked it up and then abandoned it, but we've all seen that happen with acquired software.

Possibly because Robin Keir is no longer with McAfee?