Summary
This article provides instructions on performing a traceroute on a Mac OS X computer.
How-To
Mac OS X has a command-line utility for performing a trace route called "traceroute". A traceroute is a network map of connection points to get from one location, usually your device to another location (e.g. www.unh.edu ). The traceroute measures the turn-by-turn steps (or hops) and associated time to complete the trace.
Task: To perform a traceroute on a Mac OS X computer.
Instructions
Step 1 - Open a Terminal window. Terminal can be found by opening the Finder, select Applications and Utilities. To open a terminal session, double-click on "Terminal.app".
Step 2 - Inside the Terminal application, the traceroute command is "traceroute" and the specified target (i.e. www.unh.edu ). The command will output the results of the traceroute to the screen.
Step 3 - To copy this result simple highlight and copy (Command ( C). You may also export the results of the trace route directly to a file on your computer. The example below outputs the trace route results to the file "traceroute_results.txt" on the user's Desktop.
The resulting file will include the same trace route information that is displayed on the screen in the previous step.
Outcome
You have performed a traceroute on a MAC OS X computer.
Further Readings
How To: Trace Route (Windows)
How To: Nslookup (Mac OS X)
How-To: NSLookup (Windows)
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