Trace Routes And Pings

[DasFox]

I'm having some problems with a NewHosting provider and they tell me doing a reverse traceroute is the best.

Here was the reply:

A route from you to me is useless, you cannot change your upstream provider to
check different routes. I can. When you change ports it ALSO switches what
front end you are connected to.

Switching the port forces your packets out a different upstream. Reverse
traceroute is the only tool to show you the best route. Think about it. I'm
completely correct.

Since when did doing a traceroute and ping to a box become useless and only reverse traceroutes worth anything?

Hmm doesn't sound right to me.

I want to do a traceroute to their servers to see the reply I get, so what is so useless about this, I have been doing this for years to see how hops are from my box enroute to a server, now someone tells me this is useless?

THANKS

 

[DasFox]

Anyone?

 

[Zolty]

This is from a technical support person?

He seems to contradict himself

A route from you to me is useless, you cannot change your upstream provider to

Switching the port forces your packets out a different upstream.

That point aside, I am very curious as to what you are actually attempting to prove. Does your page load slowly? If so then you may want to check a third party ping utility (example: dnsstuff.org).

The technical support person seems to think that your ISP is the cause for the slow down, is there a particular hop where it does slow down? Is this on their network or their connection?


If this is a cheap host they probably don't care and you should realize that when it comes to hosting you get what you pay for.

Also Changing data ports should not affect the route that data takes unless the router has been specifically instructed to do so, most are not.

 

[DasFox]

I just want to ping the server to check the hops in route, I mean that's the point of traceroute to see if any hops are bad getting there.

 

[peterjp100]

First, it doesn't sound like that rep is all that technical. I don't get the feeling that he understands what he is talking about.

But, as for reverse traceroute, they are helpful because internet traffic can be asymmetrical. Meaning that the path to a destination IP address is not necessarily the same as the path from that IP address back to your PC. An anology, you can drive from New York to Chicago along one route and take another route from Chicago back to New York.

Your standard traceroute is not able to represent the path in both directions. It only shows the router hops from the source of the traceroute to the destination IP address. So, along with a traceroute from your PC to the destination, a traceroute which originates from a close to the destination IP address as possible back to your PC can help to clarify the path data is taking and where packet loss or latency is occurring. This is why a reverse traceroute is sometimes requested.

traceroute.org has some resources that can help you.

 

[DasFox]

ok

 

[DasFox]

Now I get this reply from them:

All connections to our servers go through dual SLB's, we don't give out the specific server IP's

Well I should reply back, I guess I've been a customer for over a year so I can talk you into getting your server IPs so I can hack them, sheesh talk about paranoia, I don't know any geek would take a year being a customer with a company just so they can get the IPs to hack the server, LOL.

Oh and you don't hack with an IP you need an OS and a port, sheeesh...... 🙁