Ubuntu Manpage: mtr - a network diagnostic tool

NAME

       mtr - a network diagnostic tool

SYNOPSIS

       mtr   [-4|-6]   [-F FILENAME]   [--report]   [--report-wide]  [--xml]  [--gtk]  [--curses]
       [--displaymode MODE]  [--raw]   [--csv]   [--json]   [--split]   [--no-dns]   [--show-ips]
       [-o FIELDS]    [-y IPINFO]    [--aslookup]    [-i INTERVAL]   [-c COUNT]   [-s PACKETSIZE]
       [-B BITPATTERN] [-G GRACEPERIOD] [-Q TOS] [--mpls] [-I NAME]  [-a ADDRESS]  [-f FIRST-TTL]
       [-m MAX-TTL]   [-U MAX-UNKNOWN]   [--udp]   [--tcp]   [--sctp]   [-P PORT]  [-L LOCALPORT]
       [-Z TIMEOUT] [-M MARK] HOSTNAME

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  milliseconds  and  the
       percentage of packet loss.

OPTIONS

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

-v, --version
Print the installed version of mtr.

-4 Use IPv4 only.

-6 Use IPv6 only. (IPV4 may be used for DNS lookups.)

-F FILENAME, --filename FILENAME
Reads the list of hostnames from the specified file.

-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.

-x, --xml
Use this option to tell mtr to use the xml output format. This format is better
suited for automated processing of the measurement results.

-t, --curses
Use this option to force mtr to use the curses based terminal interface (if
available). In case the list of hops exceeds the height of your terminal, you can
use the + and - keys to scroll up and down half a page.

Ctrl-L clears spurious error messages that may overwrite other parts of the
display.

--displaymode MODE
Use this option to select the initial display mode: 0 (default) selects statistics,
1 selects the stripchart without latency information, and 2 selects the stripchart
with latency information.

-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+.

-l, --raw
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.

Example of the raw output format:
h 0 10.1.1.1
p 0 339
h 1 46.149.16.4
p 1 530
h 2 172.31.1.16
p 2 531
h 3 82.221.168.236
p 3 1523
h 5 195.130.211.8
p 5 1603
h 6 193.4.58.17
p 6 1127
h 7 193.4.58.17
d 7 www.isnic.is

-C, --csv
Use the Comma-Separated-Value (CSV) output format. (Note: The separator is
actually a semi-colon ';'.)

Example of the CSV output format:
MTR.0.86+git:16e39fc0;1435562787;OK;nic.is;1;r-76520-PROD.greenqloud.internal;288
MTR.0.86+git:16e39fc0;1435562787;OK;nic.is;2;46.149.16.4;2086
MTR.0.86+git:16e39fc0;1435562787;OK;nic.is;3;172.31.1.16;600
MTR.0.86+git:16e39fc0;1435562787;OK;nic.is;4;82.221.168.236;1163
MTR.0.86+git:16e39fc0;1435562787;OK;nic.is;5;???;0
MTR.0.86+git:16e39fc0;1435562787;OK;nic.is;6;rix-k2-gw.isnic.is;1654
MTR.0.86+git:16e39fc0;1435562787;OK;nic.is;7;www.isnic.is;1036

-j, --json
Use this option to tell mtr to use the JSON output format. This format is better
suited for automated processing of the measurement results. Jansson library must
have been available on the system when mtr was built for this to work.

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

-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 FIELDS
Use this option to specify which fields to display and in which order. You may use
one or more space characters to separate fields.
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 X"

-y n, --ipinfo n
Displays information about each IP hop. Valid values for n are:

0 Display AS number (equivalent to -z)
1 Display IP prefix
2 Display country code of the origin AS
3 Display RIR (ripencc, arin, ...)
4 Display the allocation date of the IP prefix

It is possible to cycle between these fields at runtime (using the y key).

-z, --aslookup
Displays the Autonomous System (AS) number alongside each hop. Equivalent to
--ipinfo 0.

Example (columns to the right not shown for clarity):
1. AS??? r-76520-PROD.greenqloud.internal
2. AS51969 46.149.16.4
3. AS??? 172.31.1.16
4. AS30818 82.221.168.236
5. ???
6. AS??? rix-k2-gw.isnic.is
7. AS1850 www.isnic.is

-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. The root user may
choose values between zero and one.

-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 PACKETSIZE, --psize PACKETSIZE
This option 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 up to that number.

-B NUM, --bitpattern NUM
Specifies bit pattern to use in payload. Should be within range 0 - 255. If NUM
is greater than 255, a random pattern is used.

-G SECONDS, --gracetime SECONDS
Use this option to specify the positive number of seconds to wait for responses
after the final request. The default value is five seconds.

-Q NUM, --tos NUM
Specifies value for type of service field in IP header. Should be within range 0 -
255.

-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.

-I NAME, --interface NAME
Use the network interface with a specific name for sending network probes. This
can be useful when you have multiple network interfaces with routes to your
destination, for example both wired Ethernet and WiFi, and wish to test a
particular interface.

-a ADDRESS, --address ADDRESS
Use this option to bind the outgoing socket to ADDRESS, so that all packets will be
sent with ADDRESS as source address. NOTE that this option doesn't apply to DNS
requests (which could be and could not be what you want).

-f NUM, --first-ttl NUM
Specifies with what TTL to start. Defaults to 1.

-m NUM, --max-ttl NUM
Specifies the maximum number of hops (max time-to-live value) traceroute will
probe. Default is 30.

-U NUM, --max-unknown NUM
Specifies the maximum unknown host. Default is 5.

-u, --udp
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.

-S, --sctp
Use Stream Control Transmission Protocol packets instead of ICMP ECHO.

-P PORT, --port PORT
The target port number for TCP/SCTP/UDP traces.

-L LOCALPORT, --localport LOCALPORT
The source port number for UDP traces.

-Z SECONDS, --timeout SECONDS
The number of seconds to keep probe sockets open before giving up on the
connection. Using large values for this, especially combined with a short
interval, will use up a lot of file descriptors.

-M MARK, --mark MARK
Set the mark for each packet sent through this socket similar to the netfilter MARK
target but socket-based. MARK is 32 unsigned integer. See socket(7) for full
description of this socket option.

ENVIRONMENT

       mtr recognizes a few environment variables.

       MTR_OPTIONS
              This environment variable allows one to specify options, as if they were passed  on
              the  command line.  It is parsed before reading the actual command line options, so
              that options specified in MTR_OPTIONS are overridden by command-line options.

              Example:

              MTR_OPTIONS="-4 -c 1" mtr -6 localhost

              would send one probe (because of -c 1) towards ::1 (because of -6, which  overrides
              the -4 passed in MTR_OPTIONS).

       MTR_PACKET
              A  path  to the mtr-packet executable, to be used for sending and receiving network
              probes.  If MTR_PACKET is unset, the PATH will be used to search for an  mtr-packet
              executable.

       DISPLAY
              Specifies an X11 server for the GTK+ frontend.

INTERACTIVE CONTROL

       mtr can be controlled while it is running with the following keys:
         ?|h     help
         p       pause (SPACE to resume)
         d       switching display mode
         e       toggle MPLS information on/off
         n       toggle DNS on/off
         r       reset all counters
         o str   set the columns to display, default str='LRS N BAWV'
         j       toggle latency(LS NABWV)/jitter(DR AGJMXI) stats
         c <n>   report cycle n, default n=infinite
         i <n>   set the ping interval to n seconds, default n=1
         f <n>   set the initial time-to-live(ttl), default n=1
         m <n>   set the max time-to-live, default n= # of hops
         s <n>   set the packet size to n or random(n<0)
         b <c>   set ping bit pattern to c(0..255) or random(c<0)
         Q <t>   set ping packet's TOS to t
         u       switch between ICMP ECHO and UDP datagrams
         y       switching IP info
         z       toggle ASN info on/off
         q       exit

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

       For the latest version, see the mtr web page at ⟨http://www.bitwizard.nl/mtr/⟩

       For  patches,  bug  reports,  or  feature  requests,  please  open  an issue on GitHub at:
       ⟨https://github.com/traviscross/mtr⟩.