Lab Manual

CS601 – Data Communication

LAB No. 08

Demonstration of Trace route command to track the route of a packet

in a packet switched network

Department of Computer Science, Virtual University of Pakistan

 Lab 8

Lab Title: Demonstration of Trace route command to track the route of a packet in a packet
switched network

Objectives: In this lab, we will study a command prompt command to trace the route of a
packet that it takes to reach the specified destination over a packet switched network.

Tool: Command Prompt

Description:
Packet-switched describes the type of network in which relatively small units of data called
packets are routed through a network based on the destination address contained within each
packet. Breaking communication down into packets allows the same data path to be shared
among many users in the network. And your data can also take various paths from source to
reach the destination. Traceroute “Tracert” is a command which can show you the path a packet
of information takes from your computer to one you specify. It will list all the routers it passes
through until it reaches its destination, or fails and is discarded. In addition to this, it will tell you
how long each ‘hop’ from node to next node takes.

Activity 1: Capturing Traffic

 Open command prompt from start menu of your operating system. (Press the Windows +
R key combination in order to open the Run dialog box and then type cmd and press
enter).
 The ping command is used to test the connectivity between two machines. You can use
ping command to check the connection to the destination host is OK or not. Write the
ping and then type the IP address/domain name of the host you want to trace route. In the
command prompt window, type the ping command with domain name or IP address like:
o Ping 192.168.1.12
o Ping www.facebook.com

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 Figure 1: Ping command showing results for domain name of Facebook server

 Then, in the command prompt window, type the tracert command with domain name or
IP address like:
o tracert www.facebook.com
o tracert 110.86.25.12

Figure 2: Command Prompt showing Details of the route of a packet in packet switched environment.

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It will show some useful details along with the nodes in the path of a packet going from source to
the destination as shown in the diagram.

Task:

After completing the above mentioned activities; you are required to complete the following
tasks:

a. Attach the snapshot of your ping command statistics in your lab report with clear
indication of the IP address or Domain name.
b. Attach the snapshot of your activity of trace route command in your lab report.

Mechanism to Conduct Lab:

Students and teacher communicate through Skype/Adobe Connect. Students perform the task
using the command prompt.

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