Which network troubleshooting utility is used to find the number of hops required for a packet to reach its destination?

Which network troubleshooting utility is used to find the number of hops required for a packet to reach its destination?

• A. tracepath
• B. route
• C. traceroute
• D. dig

Answer: (C)

Finding the number of hops to a destination comes from mapping the path and identifying each intermediate router. Traceroute does exactly that: it sends probes with gradually increasing TTL values and records the response from every hop along the route. When a router receives a packet whose TTL has expired, it typically replies with an ICMP Time Exceeded message, revealing that hop’s address. When the destination responds, traceroute completes the path. The collected responses show each router the packet traverses, giving you the hop count. Tracepath can perform a similar trace, but traceroute is the widely used, standard tool for discovering the path and counting hops. The other options serve different purposes: route shows the routing table, and dig performs DNS queries.

Finding the number of hops to a destination comes from mapping the path and identifying each intermediate router. Traceroute does exactly that: it sends probes with gradually increasing TTL values and records the response from every hop along the route. When a router receives a packet whose TTL has expired, it typically replies with an ICMP Time Exceeded message, revealing that hop’s address. When the destination responds, traceroute completes the path. The collected responses show each router the packet traverses, giving you the hop count. Tracepath can perform a similar trace, but traceroute is the widely used, standard tool for discovering the path and counting hops. The other options serve different purposes: route shows the routing table, and dig performs DNS queries.