Traceroute

To my surprise the web pages that I look at on the Internet do not magically appear on my computer screen. Much to my horror they go through multiple routers to arrive at their desired destination. The mystery behind the Internet has been exposed.

I am not to sure if I will ever use traceroute again after this course. It was very interesting finding out the amount of routers that are involved in sending packets of information around the globe.

Enough on my thoughts, down to the nitty gritty of the task. The first thing I was asked to do is find the network-tools.com web site and using traceroute trace path from network-tools.com to curtin.edu.au. There was 19 hops (number 20 was curtin.edu.au) and it took 267ms for the packet of information to move from network-tools.com to curtin.edu.au and back again. The IP address for curtin.edu.au is 134.7.179.53.

Next I was asked to ping webct and it was 270ms over 10 pings. So I gather that pinging is about cutting down the numebr of routers involved but it increased the ms time. Still hazy on what pinging is exactly, but the name suggests to me that it should be faster or is it acutally the set of golf clubs that my husband has in the garage. Only time will tell.

Lastly I was asked to traceroute curtin.edu.au from my computer. The first hurdle was trying to remember how to get the MS-DOS prompt. After wracking my brain and getting nowhere, I enlisted windows help. Thank god for help is all I can say. Back in the old days I could find the MS-DOS prompt easily, however today it is called the 'command propmpt' on windows vista business. Got there in the end and did a traceroute on curtin.edu.au and it took 21 hops (22 was curtin.edu.au) and 92ms. So even though it took only 19 hops from netwrok-tools.com to curtin the ms speed was higher (267ms). My computer is faster. I think.

Yahoooooo, I have completed module 1. Now onto bigger and better things......

Stay tuned for the next update.