Forums > Specific Focus > Technical Mexico

tonyburton

Apr 30, 2009, 1:53 PM

Post #1 of 6 (2191 views)

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Tracking the route of an e-mail or link to a website

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Do any of you technical boffins happen to know of any easy way to see the precise routing taken by an e-mail or a request to view a website?
I'm looking for something precise enough to show or identify the major nodes/cities en route, rather than every ISP or server - for instance, did this post, starting from Vancouver Island, go via Vancouver and Los Angeles to the MexConnect server, or via Seattle, Detroit and Phoenix to the server?
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer, Tony

(This post was edited by tonyburton on Apr 30, 2009, 1:53 PM)

morgaine7

Apr 30, 2009, 2:52 PM

Post #2 of 6 (2183 views)

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Re: [tonyburton] Tracking the route of an e-mail or link to a website

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For an email I just use the "long header" or "full header" option in my POP mail program to show the path of a given message.

For websites I use traceroute. It requires terminal emulation or something that gives you a command line interface. From the command prompt, which is usually something like $ or >, you just enter traceroute plus the URL.]

Example:
$ traceroute www.mexconnect.com

It gives you the complete path and the time taken between nodes. Some ISPs have it disabled, though.

Kate

tonyburton

Apr 30, 2009, 3:20 PM

Post #3 of 6 (2178 views)

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Re: [morgaine7] Tracking the route of an e-mail or link to a website

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Thanks, Kate - traceroute should work, even if I'll have to look up a lot of ISP numbers to find out where some of the nodes are actually located. The command for windows command prompt (as opposed to Mac) is tracert
Thanks again! Tony

morgaine7

Apr 30, 2009, 3:45 PM

Post #4 of 6 (2174 views)

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Re: [tonyburton] Tracking the route of an e-mail or link to a website

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It resolves the IPs for you if it can, and some include the location. For example, from La Paz to the MexConnect server it went through (among several others)
8 ge7-0-0d0.rar1.chicago-il.us.xo.net (65.106.1.41)
9 p4-0-0.mar1.marylandheights-mo.us.xo.net (65.106.6.158)
Note that the packets won't always use the same path. If one node is too busy or not working, the network will try to bypass it.

Useful to know that it can be done on Windows. I always used the UNIX server at work for stuff like this before I got the UNIX-based Mac.

Kate

sparks

May 1, 2009, 5:37 AM

Post #5 of 6 (2154 views)

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Re: [tonyburton] Tracking the route of an e-mail or link to a website

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There are various online tracert utils ... here's two

http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/visual-tracert/
http://www.tracert.com/

tracert only does from a point to you or the reverse ... it can't do historical checks

Sparks Mexico - Sparks Costalegre

tonyburton

May 1, 2009, 7:54 AM

Post #6 of 6 (2143 views)

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Re: [sparks] Tracking the route of an e-mail or link to a website

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Thanks, sparks - I love the visual approach! (and now I have another way to avoid doing any work...)