Traceroute Monitoring

Traceroute allows to track the route taken by packets across an IP network.

Traceroute monitoring service implements traceroute functionality providing an ability to test an IP network host availability/reachability. This may help to detect and diagnose various network problems. The traceroute monitor supports both known traceroute implementation methods: using ICMP echo requests and UDP datagrams. The network route traced during monitoring is available for analysis by any of Iotellect data processing facilities. For example, it's possible to trigger an alert if number of hops exceeds a threshold, or hop N has a certain IP address.

Using Traceroute service under Linux requires root permissions or raw socket access permissions for the operating system user executing Iotellect Server application.

Synchronization Details

Traceroute service synchronization includes the following steps:

  • Basic traceroute procedure is executed by sending ICMP or UDP datagrams from local to destination host. Starting with time to live (TTL) field of datagram set to 1 and subsequently incrementing it, information about intermediate network nodes (hop) is collected. The process stops either if the destination host is reached or if max number of hops is encountered. The traceroute procedure uses parameters specified as service settings.
  • The collected information is processed and analyzed producing monitoring results.

    • The Traceroute service is deemed Online if both steps a successfully performed and destination host was reached with the specified number of hops. Otherwise service is denoted as Offline and error message is saved in monitoring results.

    Configuring Firewall to Enable Route Tracing

    Certain operating systems may require additional configuration in order to allow Iotellect Server to receive incoming ICMP messages used by ICMP traceroute.

    For example, under Windows Vista/Seven, you need to perform the following steps:

    • Go to Start Menu > Control Panel > Administration > Windows Firewall with Advanced Security
    • Select Inbound Rules in the left pane
    • Select New Rule... in the right pane
    • Select For port and click Next
    • Select TCP and All local ports, then click Next
    • Click Next in Action and Profile dialogs (all profiles should be selected)
    • Enter any filter name and click OK
    • Double-click on the newly created rule in the main pane
    • Switch to Protocols and ports tab and select ICMPv4 in Protocol type combo box
    • Click OK to close the dialog.

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