<refentry id="tracepath">

<refmeta>
<refentrytitle>tracepath</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>8</manvolnum>
<refmiscinfo>iputils-&snapshot;</refmiscinfo>
</refmeta>

<refnamediv>
<refname>tracepath, tracepath6</refname>
<refpurpose>
traces path to a network host discovering MTU along this path</refpurpose>
</refnamediv>

<refsynopsisdiv>
<cmdsynopsis>
<command>tracepath</command>
<arg choice="req"><replaceable/destination/</arg>
<arg choice="opt"><replaceable/port/</arg>
</cmdsynopsis>
</refsynopsisdiv>

<refsect1><title>DESCRIPTION</title>
<para>
It traces path to <replaceable/destination/ discovering MTU along this path.
It uses UDP port <replaceable/port/ or some random port.
It is similar to <command/traceroute/, only does not not require superuser
privileges and has no fancy options.
</para>

<para>
<command/tracepath6/ is good replacement for <command/traceroute6/
and classic example of application of Linux error queues.
The situation with <command/tracepath/ is worse, because commercial
IP routers do not return enough information in icmp error messages.
Probably, it will change, when they will be updated.
For now it uses Van Jacobson's trick, sweeping a range
of UDP ports to maintain trace history.
</para>
</refsect1>

<refsect1><title>SEE ALSO</title>
<para>
<citerefentry><refentrytitle/traceroute/<manvolnum/8/</citerefentry>,
<link linkend="traceroute6">
<citerefentry><refentrytitle/traceroute6/<manvolnum/8/</citerefentry></link>,
<link linkend="ping">
<citerefentry><refentrytitle/ping/<manvolnum/8/</citerefentry></link>.
</para>
</refsect1>

<refsect1><title>AUTHOR</title>
<para>
<command/arping/ was written by
<ulink url="mailto:kuznet@ms2.inr.ac.ru">Alexey Kuznetsov
&lt;kuznet@ms2.inr.ac.ru&gt;</ulink>.
</para>
</refsect1>

<refsect1><title>SECURITY</title>
<para>
No security issues.
</para>
<para>
This lapidary deserves to be elaborated.
<command/tracepath/ is not a privileged program, unlike
<command/traceroute/,<command/ping/ and other beasts of this kind.
<command/tracepath/ may be executed by everyone who has some access
to network, enough to send UDP datagrams to investigated destination
using given port.
</para>
</refsect1>

<refsect1><title>AVAILABILITY</title>
<para>
<command/arping/ is part of <filename/iputils/ package
and the latest versions are  available in source form for anonymous ftp
<ulink url="ftp://ftp.inr.ac.ru/ip-routing/iputils-current.tar.gz">
ftp://ftp.inr.ac.ru/ip-routing/iputils-current.tar.gz</ulink>.
</para>
</refsect1>

<![IGNORE[
<refsect1><title>COPYING</title>
<para>
<literallayout>
This documentation is free software; you can redistribute
it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
License Version 2.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be
useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied
warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
See the GNU General Public License for more details.
 
For more details see the file COPYING in the source
distribution of Linux kernel of version 2.4.
</literallayout>
</para>
</refsect1>
]]>




</refentry>
