Ubuntu Manpage: mtr - a network diagnostic tool

NAME

       mtr - a network diagnostic tool

SYNOPSIS

       mtr     [-hvrctglspeniuTP46]     [--help]     [--version]    [--report]    [--report-wide]
       [--report-cycles COUNT] [--curses]  [--split]  [--raw]  [--mpls]  [--no-dns]  [--show-ips]
       [--gtk]  [--address IP.ADD.RE.SS]  [--interval SECONDS] [--psize BYTES | -s BYTES] [--tcp]
       [--port PORT] [--timeout SECONDS] HOSTNAME [PACKETSIZE]

DESCRIPTION

       mtr combines the functionality of the traceroute and ping programs  in  a  single  network
       diagnostic tool.

       As  mtr  starts,  it  investigates the network connection between the host mtr runs on and
       HOSTNAME.  by sending packets with purposely low TTLs. It continues to send  packets  with
       low  TTL,  noting  the response time of the intervening routers.  This allows mtr to print
       the response percentage and response times of the internet route to  HOSTNAME.   A  sudden
       increase  in  packet  loss  or  response  time  is often an indication of a bad (or simply
       overloaded) link.

       The results are usually reported as  round-trip-response  times  in  miliseconds  and  the
       percentage of packetloss.

OPTIONS

-h

--help
Print the summary of command line argument options.

-v

--version
Print the installed version of mtr.

-r

--report
This option puts mtr into report mode. When in this mode, mtr will run for the
number of cycles specified by the -c option, and then print statistics and exit.

This mode is useful for generating statistics about network quality.
Note that each running instance of mtr generates a significant amount of network
traffic. Using mtr to measure the quality of your network may result in decreased
network performance.

-w

--report-wide
This option puts mtr into wide report mode. When in this mode, mtr will not cut
hostnames in the report.

-c COUNT

--report-cycles COUNT
Use this option to set the number of pings sent to determine both the machines on
the network and the reliability of those machines. Each cycle lasts one second.

-s BYTES

--psize BYTES

PACKETSIZE
These options or a trailing PACKETSIZE on the command line sets the packet size
used for probing. It is in bytes inclusive IP and ICMP headers

If set to a negative number, every iteration will use a different, random packet
size upto that number.

-t

--curses
Use this option to force mtr to use the curses based terminal interface (if
available).

-e

--mpls
Use this option to tell mtr to display information from ICMP extensions for MPLS
(RFC 4950) that are encoded in the response packets.

-n

--no-dns
Use this option to force mtr to display numeric IP numbers and not try to resolve
the host names.

-b

--show-ips
Use this option to tell mtr to display both the host names and numeric IP numbers.
In split mode this adds an extra field to the output. In report mode, there is
usually too little space to add the IPs, and they will be truncated. Use the wide
report (-w) mode to see the IPs in report mode.

-o fields order

--order fields order
Use this option to specify the fields and their order when loading mtr.
Available fields:

┌──┬─────────────────────┐
│L │ Loss ratio │
├──┼─────────────────────┤
│D │ Dropped packets │
├──┼─────────────────────┤
│R │ Received packets │
├──┼─────────────────────┤
│S │ Sent Packets │
├──┼─────────────────────┤
│N │ Newest RTT(ms) │
├──┼─────────────────────┤
│B │ Min/Best RTT(ms) │
├──┼─────────────────────┤
│A │ Average RTT(ms) │
├──┼─────────────────────┤
│W │ Max/Worst RTT(ms) │
├──┼─────────────────────┤
│V │ Standard Deviation │
├──┼─────────────────────┤
│G │ Geometric Mean │
├──┼─────────────────────┤
│J │ Current Jitter │
├──┼─────────────────────┤
│M │ Jitter Mean/Avg. │
├──┼─────────────────────┤
│X │ Worst Jitter │
├──┼─────────────────────┤
│I │ Interarrival Jitter │
└──┴─────────────────────┘
Example: -o "LSD NBAW"

-g

--gtk
Use this option to force mtr to use the GTK+ based X11 window interface (if
available). GTK+ must have been available on the system when mtr was built for
this to work. See the GTK+ web page at http://www.gtk.org/ for more information
about GTK+.

-p

--split
Use this option to set mtr to spit out a format that is suitable for a split-user
interface.

-l

--raw
Use this option to tell mtr to use the raw output format. This format is better
suited for archival of the measurement results. It could be parsed to be presented
into any of the other display methods.

-a IP.ADD.RE.SS

--address IP.ADD.RE.SS
Use this option to bind outgoing packets' socket to specific interface, so that any
packet will be sent through this interface. NOTE that this option doesn't apply to
DNS requests (which could be and could not be what you want).

-i SECONDS

--interval SECONDS
Use this option to specify the positive number of seconds between ICMP ECHO
requests. The default value for this parameter is one second.

-u
Use UDP datagrams instead of ICMP ECHO.

-T

--tcp
Use TCP SYN packets instead of ICMP ECHO. PACKETSIZE is ignored, since SYN packets
can not contain data.

-P PORT

--port PORT
The target port number for TCP traces.

--timeout SECONDS
The number of seconds to keep the TCP socket open before giving up on the
connection. This will only affect the final hop. Using large values for this,
especially combined with a short interval, will use up a lot of file descriptors.

-4
Use IPv4 only.

-6
Use IPv6 only.

BUGS

       Some modern routers give a lower priority to ICMP  ECHO  packets  than  to  other  network
       traffic.   Consequently,  the  reliability  of  these  routers  reported  by  mtr  will be
       significantly lower than the actual reliability of these routers.

CONTACT INFORMATION