General Tips: How To Do A Trace Route From PC To Your Domain Server

How do I do a traceroute to diagnose network problems?

To perform a traceroute from our network to your computer,

A) Use the traceroute tool in the Onsite Control Panel.

B) For complete diagnostics, do a trace in the other direction, from your computer to our network by getting a prompt on your own computer and then following these steps:

At the command prompt on your own computer, type this if you run Windows:

tracert modwest.com

If you run GNU/Linux or UNIX, type this:

traceroute modwest.com

In MacOS X, you can run the same command as you would in UNIX, or:

1. Beginning by opening the Hard Drive icon, navigate through the applications folder to the Utilities folder and then open the Network Utility program.
   

2. Click the Traceroute tab and enter the hostname. The hostname is a domain name, a machine name or an IP address.
   

3. Click Trace.
   

How to read the results
Each line of output represents 1 "hop" on your trip across the Internet to our network and includes the time, in milliseconds, that it took to traverse that hop. If you see times over 350ms, over 1 second, or asterisks (*), then that is the point on the Internet where you are being slowed down. If you find a slow hop, unless its name is "montanavision" or "modwest", the trouble is on the Internet, not on our network!

Only if your trace results show a slow hop on our network, then we will need you to send us the entire text of your trace.

On Windows, you can copy all the output from the traceroute by selecting it from the top left corner to the bottom right corner with your mouse, then right-clicking the highlighted selection, and choosing Edit, and then clicking Copy.