mtr

Description

Use the mtr command to probe and report on routers and their response time on an individual route path.

Syntax

mtr [-hvrctglspniu46] [--help] [--version] [--report] [--report-wide] [--report-cycles COUNT] [--curses] [--split] [--raw] [--no-dns] [--gtk] [--address IP.ADD.RE.SS] [--interval SECONDS] [--psize BYTES | -s BYTES] HOSTNAME [PACKETSIZE]

Arguments

<mtr options>

Specifies the type of mtr. Select one of the following options:   • -h help. Print the summary of command line argument options. • -v version. Print the installed version of mtr. • -r report. This option puts mtr into report mode. When in this mode, mtr will run for the number of cycles specified by the -c option, and then print statistics and exit. This mode is useful for generating statistics about network quality. Note that each running instance of mtr generates a significant amount of network traffic. Using mtr to measure the quality of your network may result in decreased network performance. • -w report-wide. This option puts mtr into wide report mode. When in this mode, mtr will not cut hostnames in the report. • -c report-cycles COUNT. Use this option to set the number of pings sent to determine both the machines on the network and the reliability of those machines. Each cycle lasts one second. • -s BYTES, -psize BYTES, -PACKETSIZE. These options or a trailing PACKETSIZE on the command line sets the packet size used for probing. It is in bytes inclusive IP and ICMP headers. If set to a negative number, every iteration will use a different, random packetsize up to that number. • -t curses. Use this option to force mtr to use the curses based terminal interface (if available). • -n no-dns. Use this option to force mtr to display numberic IP numbers and not try to resolve the host names. • -o fields order.Use this option to specify the fields and their order when loading mtr. Example: -o “LSD NBAW” • -g gtk. Use this option to force mtr to use the GTK+ based X11 window interface (if available). GTK+ must have been available on the system when mtr was built for this to work. See the GTK+ web page at http://www.gimp.org/gtk/ for more information about GTK+. • -p split. Use this option to set mtr to spit out a format that is suitable for a split-user interface. • -l raw. Use this option to tell mtr to use the raw output format. This format is better suited for archival of the measurement results. It could be parsed to be presented into any of the other display methods.

• -a address IP.ADD.RE.SS. Use this option to bind outgoing packets’ socket to specific interface, so that any packet will be sent through this interface. NOTE that this options doesn’t apply to DNS requests (which could be and could not be what you want). • - i interval SECONDS. Use this option to specify the positive number of seconds between ICMP ECHO requests. The default value for this parameter is one second. • -u. Use UDP diagrams instead of ICMP ECHO. • -4. Use IPv4 only. • -6. Use IPv6 only.

Defaults

None.

Command Mode

User EXEC Mode

Privileged EXEC Mode

Global Configuration Mode

See Also

See the following related commands:

n

“hping2”

n

“ping”

n

“tcpdump”

n	“tcptraceroute”

n	“traceroute”.

Usage Guidelines

n	mtr combines the functionality of traceroute and ping in a single network diagnostic tool.

n	mtr probes routers on the route path by limiting the number of hops that individual packets may traverse, and listening to responses of their expiry.

It regularly repeats this process, usually once per second, and keep track of the response times of the hops along the path.

n	mtr combines the functionality of the traceroute and ping programs in a single network diagnostic tool.

n

[from Linux man page] As mtr starts, it investigates the network connection between the host mtr runs on and HOSTNAME. by sending packets with purposely low TTLs. It continues to send packets with low TTL, noting the response time of the intervening routers. This allows mtr to print the response percentage and response times of the internet route to HOSTNAME. A sudden increase in packet loss or response time is often an indication of a bad (or simply overloaded) link.

Examples

tallinn3 (config) # mtr

My traceroute [v0.75]

tallinn3 (0.0.0.0) Tue Sep 21 02:03:12 2010

Keys: Help Display mode Restart statistics Order of fields quit

Packets Pings

Host Loss% Snt Last Avg Best Wrst StDev

1. localhost 0.0% 66 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

Please send comments or suggestions regarding user documentation to techpubs@silver-peak.com.