Find where a path breaks with ping and traceroute
When one host is unreachable, ping and traceroute find where the path breaks. Ping the default gateway to confirm the local link, ping the target to reproduce the failure, then run tracert and read the last hop that answers; the break is just past it. This lab uses the simulated command prompt; a real prompt runs the same commands. This page teaches a job procedure. These are not exam questions, this is not a score predictor, and nothing here is taken from any exam.
Steps
- 1
Ping the default gateway (ping 192.168.1.1) to confirm the local link is up.
- 2
Ping the target by name (ping fileserver01) to reproduce the failure.
- 3
Run tracert fileserver01 and read the last hop that answers; the break is just past it.
What you should see
The gateway replies, the file server times out, and the trace reaches the core router at hop 2 before timing out, so you can point to the segment beyond that hop.