When you visit a website, the data travels across multiple devices and networks to get from the server to your computer or device. This means there are many potential points of failure.
Running a ping test can help determine if a remote server is reachable from your network. Traceroute is a utility that provides a map of the path data packets take to get from the source to the destination.
Traceroute can provide helpful insight in cases where you are unable to connect to your server or website or when experiencing latency, as it will show where in the connection path a failure or slowdown has occurred.
Here we cover the steps to run a ping and traceroute on a Windows, Mac, or Linux computer.
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Windows
- Click the Start menu and type "cmd"
- Open the command prompt from the search results
- Type the following into the command prompt and press the Enter key to run a ping
ping domain.com
REPLACE: domain.com with the domain or IP address of the server you are having trouble reaching. - Type the following into the command prompt and press the Enter key to run a traceroute
tracert domain.com
REPLACE: domain.com with the domain or IP address of the server you are having trouble reaching. - Review the guide on reading a traceroute or provide the results to our Support team if this information has been requested
Mac or Linux
- Open a Terminal session
- Type the following into the command prompt and press the Enter key to run a ping
ping domain.com
REPLACE: domain.com with the domain or IP address of the server you are having trouble reaching.
TIP: This will continue running indefinitely. Press CTRL+C to stop the ping after a few results have been returned - Type the following into the command prompt and press the Enter key to run a traceroute
traceroute domain.com
REPLACE: domain.com with the domain or IP address of the server you are having trouble reaching. - Review the guide on reading a traceroute or provide the results to our Support team if this information has been requested