Network Troubleshooting: Performing a Trace Route (MacOS)

Summary

This article provides instructions on performing a trace route on a MacOS computer.

MacOS has a command-line utility for performing a trace route called "traceroute". A trace route is a network map of connection points to get from one location, usually your device to another location (e.g. www.unh.edu ). The trace route measures the turn-by-turn steps (or hops) and associated time to complete the trace.

How-To

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 trace route command is "traceroute" and the specified target (i.e. www.unh.edu ).  The command will output the results of the trace route 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 command in the example below outputs the trace route results to the file "traceroute_results.txt" on the user's Desktop:  traceroute www.unh.edu > ~/Desktop/traceroute_results.txt

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 trace route on a MacOS computer.

Further Readings

Network Troubleshooting: Performing a Trace Route (Windows)

Network Troubleshooting: Performing Nslookup (MacOS)

Network Troubleshooting: Performing NSLookup (Windows)

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