traceroute for path tracing in Linux CLI - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Traceroute for Path Tracing

📖 Scenario: You want to find the path your data takes to reach a website. This helps you understand how your internet connection travels through different servers.

🎯 Goal: Build a simple script that uses traceroute to trace the path to a website and shows the result.

📋 What You'll Learn

Use the traceroute command to trace the path to example.com

Store the target website in a variable called target

Use a variable called max_hops to limit the number of hops to 5

Run traceroute with the -m option using max_hops

Print the traceroute output

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Network administrators and users use traceroute to diagnose network paths and delays.

💼 Career

Understanding traceroute helps in troubleshooting network issues and improving connectivity.

1

Set the target website

Create a variable called target and set it to the string example.com.

Linux CLI

# Create a variable called target and set it to 'example.com'
target="example.com"

Need a hint?

Use target="example.com" to store the website.

2

Set the maximum hops

Create a variable called max_hops and set it to the number 5.

Linux CLI

target="example.com"
# Create a variable called max_hops and set it to 5
max_hops=5

Need a hint?

Use max_hops=5 to limit the hops.

3

Run traceroute with max hops

Write a command that runs traceroute with the -m option set to max_hops and the target set to target. Use command substitution to store the output in a variable called result.

Linux CLI

target="example.com"
max_hops=5
# Run traceroute with -m max_hops and target, store output in result
result=$(traceroute -m $max_hops $target)

Need a hint?

Use result=$(traceroute -m $max_hops $target) to run traceroute and save output.

4

Print the traceroute result

Print the contents of the variable result to show the traceroute output.

Linux CLI

target="example.com"
max_hops=5
result=$(traceroute -m $max_hops $target)
# Print the traceroute result
printf "%s\n" "$result"

Need a hint?

Use printf "%s\n" "$result" to print the output.