ip - * * * in traceroute

06
2014-04
  • agz

    If I traceroute to my server via a bunch of different methods, the external ip seems to not work. However the server is online and accessible by this ip.

    Localhost:

    michaelxu@michaelxu-server:~$ traceroute 127.0.0.1
traceroute to 127.0.0.1 (127.0.0.1), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
 1  localhost.localdomain (127.0.0.1)  0.120 ms  0.069 ms  0.064 ms

    Internal Ip:

    michaelxu@michaelxu-server:~$ traceroute 192.168.1.3
traceroute to 192.168.1.3 (192.168.1.3), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
 1  michaelxu-server (192.168.1.3)  0.122 ms  0.065 ms  0.067 ms

    External IP: 

    michaelxu@michaelxu-server:~$ traceroute 24.24.174.153
traceroute to 24.24.174.153 (24.24.174.153), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
 1  * * *
 2  * * *
 3  * * *
 4  * * *
 5  * * *
 6  * * *
 7  * * *
 8  * * *
 9  * * *
10  * * *
11  * *^C
michaelxu@michaelxu-server:~$

    ...it contines all the way to 30 ... the same thing happens if I traceroute it through the dns server

    It also occurs if i do it from another online service:

       Tracing route to cpe-24-24-174-153.socal.res.rr.com [24.24.174.153]...

hop rtt rtt rtt     ip address  fully qualified domain name
1   1   1   1       70.84.211.97    61.d3.5446.static.theplanet.com
2   0   0   0       70.87.254.5 po101.dsr02.dllstx5.networklayer.com
3   0   0   1       70.85.127.109   po52.dsr02.dllstx3.networklayer.com
4   0   0   0       173.192.18.230  ae17.bbr02.eq01.dal03.networklayer.com
5   0   0   0       66.109.9.97 ae-11-0.pr0.dfw10.tbone.rr.com
6   41  40  39      66.109.6.208    ae-6-0.cr0.dfw10.tbone.rr.com
7   39  39  40      66.109.6.0  ae-3-0.cr0.lax30.tbone.rr.com
8   37  39  39      66.109.6.65 
9   42  40  39      72.129.9.3  agg1.lamrcadq-ccr02.socal.rr.com
10  36  36  35      72.129.10.73    
11  53  60  49      24.24.209.18    ge17-0-spsdca1-ars1.socal.rr.com
12  *   *   *           
13  *   *   *           
14  *   *   *           
15  *   *   *

    What do the * * * mean? Is there any way to "fix this"

    • Answers
  • Matt H

    There's two reasons for it.

    1) A timeout. Although usually you'll eventually get replies in one of the rtt positions like 70 * * or something.

    2) Some routers are configured to block some parts of the ICMP protocol from working (ICMP echo to be precise). This is usually to help prevent DDOS attacks etc. Traceroute depends on ICMP echo working.

    Essentially, the traceroute tool can't work out the IP address so you'll get * * * for hosts that are blocked. Eventually you may get a response from other hosts so you may see responses at larger hop counts.

    See the wikipedia article on traceroute. In your case, it's cause number 2 and there isn't anything you can do about it. Try running traceroute to another destination and you may get a full trace.


    • Related Question

    osx - Mac OS X traceroute not even reaching router gateway
  • angelamia

    I'm having an issue on a Macbook Pro running Mac OS X 10.5, I'm unable to visit certain websites such as: "themarchesa.com"

    On other computers in the same LAN network connected over wifi I'm able to see those sites fine and run a traceroute succesfully.

    When I run a traceroute from the terminal it doesn't even appear to go out to the wireless router gateway:

    angela-dions-macbook-pro:~ Angie$ traceroute themarchesa.com
traceroute to themarchesa.com (64.202.189.170), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets
traceroute: sendto: No route to host
 1 traceroute: wrote themarchesa.com 40 chars, ret=-1
 *traceroute: sendto: No route to host
traceroute: wrote themarchesa.com 40 chars, ret=-1

    When I run the same command on google.com it looks different:

    angela-dions-macbook-pro:~ Angie$ traceroute google.com
traceroute: Warning: google.com has multiple addresses; using 74.125.227.18
traceroute to google.com (74.125.227.18), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets
 1  192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1)  3.768 ms  6.499 ms  6.716 ms
 2  * * *
 3  gig3-11.austtxk-rtr2.austin.rr.com (66.68.1.253)  15.161 ms  24.131 ms  16.291 ms
 4  Gi0-2-1-1.austtxrdcsc-rtr2.austin.rr.com (24.27.12.174)  18.678 ms  26.495 ms  16.064 ms
 5  gig6-3-0.dllatxl3-rtr1.texas.rr.com (72.179.205.76)  15.589 ms  18.537 ms  18.427 ms
 6  ae-4-0.cr0.dfw10.tbone.rr.com (66.109.6.88)  16.404 ms  24.141 ms  27.108 ms
 7  ae-1-0.pr0.dfw10.tbone.rr.com (66.109.6.179)  25.488 ms  19.721 ms  20.257 ms
 8  74.125.48.65 (74.125.48.65)  20.165 ms  22.483 ms  21.444 ms
 9  72.14.233.65 (72.14.233.65)  20.186 ms  25.394 ms  20.003 ms
10  216.239.47.54 (216.239.47.54)  24.236 ms  37.011 ms  38.239 ms
11  74.125.227.18 (74.125.227.18)  27.468 ms  27.292 ms  20.032 ms

    EDIT: Here's the output of route get on the IP address:

    angela-dions-macbook-pro:~ Angie$ route get 64.202.189.170
   route to: pwfwd-v01.prod.mesa1.secureserver.net
destination: default
       mask: default
    gateway: 192.168.1.1
  interface: en1
      flags: <UP,GATEWAY,DONE,STATIC,PRCLONING>
 recvpipe  sendpipe  ssthresh  rtt,msec    rttvar  hopcount      mtu     expire
       0         0         0         0         0         0      1500         0

    Also here's my routing table information if that helps out (what else could cause this to happen). I'm able to run traceroute and visit the website on other machines on the same LAN (connected to the same router over wifi).

    angela-dions-macbook-pro:~ Angie$ netstat -rn
Routing tables

Internet:
Destination        Gateway            Flags    Refs      Use  Netif Expire
default            192.168.1.1        UGSc       30        0    en1
127                127.0.0.1          UCS         0        0    lo0
127.0.0.1          127.0.0.1          UH          1    19326    lo0
169.254            link#5             UCS         0        0    en1
192.168.1          link#5             UCS         4        0    en1
192.168.1.1        0:18:f8:b7:45:7c   UHLW       26      112    en1    955
192.168.1.107      7c:6d:62:d2:43:99  UHLW        0        0    en1   1198
192.168.1.111      127.0.0.1          UHS         0        0    lo0
192.168.1.255      link#5             UHLWb       3       18    en1

Internet6:
Destination                             Gateway                         Flags      Netif Expire
::1                                     link#1                          UHL         lo0
fe80::%lo0/64                           fe80::1%lo0                     Uc          lo0
fe80::1%lo0                             link#1                          UHL         lo0
fe80::%en1/64                           link#5                          UC          en1
fe80::21f:5bff:fec7:aed7%en1            0:1f:5b:c7:ae:d7                UHLW        en1
fe80::223:6cff:fe88:f0bd%en1            0:23:6c:88:f0:bd                UHL         lo0
ff01::/32                               ::1                             U           lo0
ff02::/32                               fe80::1%lo0                     UC          lo0
ff02::/32                               link#5                          UC          en1

    I'm not sure what else I can do to debug this issue, what should I use to help debug and fix this issue?

    There were some people that ran into a similiar issue and used some cache cleaning tools (but it seemed like the problem kept popping up, feels almost like a virus?):


    • Related Answers
  • angelamia

    The issue turned out to be Peer Guardian, I had to disable the filters and then I was able to hit those websites.

  • Ingmar Hupp

    Transmission has built-in block list support, which means you don't need to use Peer Guardian, avoiding such issues.