Php Network

Traceroute implementation

Hi, I’m sure you heard about traceroute command line tool. For me, it was pretty interesting to get to know about how it works and it would be great to implement basic functionality of it. Hope it will be interesting for you also.

How does it work?

Each TCP/IP packet has different information about itself. One part of it is called Time To Leave – TTL. This information is needed for nodes (routers, computers) and it allows to understand when packet has to be dropped from a network. TTL is not for fun there. It protects network from packets loop. Due to its value we have no packets that travels through the network infinitely.