[WEB4LIB] route tracer in browser

[James Cayz]

On Wed, 27 Oct 1999 rhiebert at sd6.bc.ca wrote:
>Hello,
>
>Does anyone know of software (freeware would be nice) that shows the
>electronic pathway followed on the internet  when a connection is made? In
>particular, I want this software to run within the browser -- I have the
>stand-alone type of route tracer, I'm looking for something to show what is
>happening while the browsing is actually being done. Thanks.
>
>Regards,
>Robert
>
>Robert Hiebert
>Librarian, Golden Secondary School
>www.sd6.bc.ca/gss/library/
>Fax: 250 344 7116
>rhiebert at sd6.bc.ca

Robert,

That would be kinda rough to do.  The best you could do is approximate it,
by running a traceroute from the same machine at the same time.  That way,
you would get the route taken by successive TTL (Time-To-Live) packets
from the exact same machine.  If on a PC, "tracert" is installed in
windows 95/98 as a DOS (C:\windows\tracert.exe) command.

That would eliminate flaws introduced by doing it from a different site or
even a different machine (some router somewhere may have a subnet mask or
access list that passes one IP address and blocks or redirects another),
but does not eliminate the very real possibility that the different
protocol and port that traceroute (UDP/7?) is using is handled differently
than the http protocol and port (TCP/80) .

But, a traceroute from the same machine, perhaps echoing back the results
to a centralized repository, would be your most accurate.

But be aware, the vaguerities of the net are such that two packets, even
with the same protocol and ports (source & destination) can travel
different routes, even if sent sequentially.  One weird instance we have
happening locally is that packets outbound often traverse one route, but
travel an entirely different route inbound.  Makes "ping" kinda neat - if
it fails, you don't know if it died outbound or inbound :-(.

James

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