This is a little post for Keat on how to use these tools on the MAC to see where her IP traffic is going and hence get an idea of where the latencies in her network and hence issues for gaming are occurring.
Step 1: Go to the applications directory, open the utilities folder and run the terminal application. This brings up a terminal window which will be in the form ip-address (on the local network):- your user ID$
192-168-1-1:~ UID$
Step 2: Use Ping to ping the IP address or the URL of the server you are trying to connect to. Type ^C to end the ping session. Some servers do not let you ping or the pings may fail. If you say send 10 pings you will get an idea if there is packet loss on the network. If a ping does not work you will get the following message: Request timeout for icmp_seq 0.
192-168-1-1:~ UID$ ping yewenyi.netPING yewenyi.net (122.201.79.205): 56 data bytes64 bytes from 122.201.79.205: icmp_seq=0 ttl=59 time=23.258 ms64 bytes from 122.201.79.205: icmp_seq=1 ttl=59 time=24.456 ms64 bytes from 122.201.79.205: icmp_seq=2 ttl=59 time=24.503 ms64 bytes from 122.201.79.205: icmp_seq=3 ttl=59 time=23.204 ms64 bytes from 122.201.79.205: icmp_seq=4 ttl=59 time=24.375 ms^C--- yewenyi.net ping statistics ---5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0.0% packet lossround-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 23.204/23.959/24.503/0.596 ms
Step 3: Use Trace Route to determine where the packets are going. Normally you will be able to tell where the packets went. Here they go through several routers who’s names indicate that they are in Sydney. This packet does not leave Sydney as I and the server are both in Sydney.
192-168-1-1:~ UID$ traceroute yewenyi.nettraceroute to yewenyi.net (122.201.79.205), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets1 mygateway1.ar7 (192.168.1.1) 2.921 ms 1.932 ms 1.571 ms2 syd-pow-cla-bras2-lo-20 (10.20.20.125) 22.511 ms 22.202 ms 21.810 ms3 syd-pow-cla-csw2-vlan-1 (202.7.166.198) 22.700 ms 23.469 ms 24.537 ms4 syd-pow-cla-crt2-ge-4-0 (202.7.162.9) 21.570 ms 21.928 ms 22.144 ms5 syd-nxg-men-crt1-po8 (202.7.171.161) 22.726 ms 22.423 ms 22.850 ms6 as9512.sydney.pipenetworks.com (218.100.2.74) 22.847 ms 23.035 ms 22.890 ms7 122.201.79.205 (122.201.79.205) 22.967 ms 23.859 ms 23.450 ms
Some routers do not respond with their details so you will see a line with stars. If a packet was lost you will also see a star. In this next example, the fourth hop router did not respond. After that the packet crosses the pacific ocean to what I’d guess is Palo Alto in California on line 6 and then San Jose in California in line 7 where it arrives at Twitter.
traceroute to twitter.com (199.59.148.83), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets1 mygateway1.ar7 (192.168.1.1) 2.169 ms 1.396 ms 1.447 ms2 syd-pow-cla-bras2-lo-20 (10.20.20.125) 21.588 ms 23.976 ms 33.908 ms3 syd-pow-cla-csw1-vlan-10 (202.7.166.65) 42.009 ms 23.921 ms 22.441 ms4 * * *5 97.65.99.17 (97.65.99.17) 164.854 ms 164.679 ms 164.946 ms6 pao1-pr1-ge-3-0-0-0.us.twtelecom.net (66.192.242.70) 179.233 ms 180.050 ms 188.583 ms7 twitter-inc.car1.sanjose2.level3.net (4.59.0.238) 179.983 ms 179.417 ms 178.883 ms8 199.16.159.29 (199.16.159.29) 183.950 ms 184.919 ms 184.617 ms9 twitter.com (199.59.148.83) 183.934 ms 184.647 ms 185.724 ms
Here is an interesting example. The packet bound for london goes first to San Jose, then to New York, Washington, Frankfurt and then to London. Hence it has a higher delay than if it went directly via an Indian Ocean path. There are three routers in line 13 as there must be some load sharing on multiple links going on. As you can see, getting to London, even going via the USA and Germany takes about 340 ms, which is not unreasonable.
traceroute to bbc.co.uk (212.58.224.138), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets1 mygateway1.ar7 (192.168.1.1) 2.059 ms 1.439 ms 1.393 ms2 syd-pow-cla-bras2-lo-20 (10.20.20.125) 21.675 ms 47.108 ms 23.941 ms3 syd-pow-cla-csw2-vlan-1 (202.7.166.198) 21.458 ms 27.799 ms 22.386 ms4 syd-pow-cla-crt2-ge-4-0 (202.7.162.9) 21.704 ms 25.149 ms 22.392 ms5 97.65.99.17 (97.65.99.17) 181.061 ms 163.916 ms 164.947 ms6 pao1-pr1-ge-3-0-0-0.us.twtelecom.net (66.192.242.70) 178.788 ms 178.872 ms 179.320 ms7 vlan60.csw1.sanjose1.level3.net (4.69.152.62) 178.650 ms 179.457 ms 178.936 ms8 ae-61-61.ebr1.sanjose1.level3.net (4.69.153.1) 179.912 ms 180.220 ms 179.915 ms9 ae-2-2.ebr2.newyork1.level3.net (4.69.135.186) 249.597 ms 248.157 ms 247.732 ms10 ae-6-6.ebr2.newyork2.level3.net (4.69.141.22) 248.889 ms 248.412 ms 248.120 ms11 ae-1-100.ebr1.newyork2.level3.net (4.69.135.253) 254.041 ms 248.557 ms 248.335 ms12 ae-3-3.ebr2.washington1.level3.net (4.69.132.89) 253.735 ms 253.094 ms 253.401 ms13 ae-43-43.ebr2.frankfurt1.level3.net (4.69.137.57) 341.351 msae-41-41.ebr2.frankfurt1.level3.net (4.69.137.49) 342.898 msae-42-42.ebr2.frankfurt1.level3.net (4.69.137.53) 343.004 ms14 ae-24-24.ebr2.london1.level3.net (4.69.148.197) 349.566 ms 351.267 ms 349.580 ms15 ae-21-52.car1.london1.level3.net (4.69.139.98) 351.361 ms 350.056 ms 351.703 ms16 195.50.118.242 (195.50.118.242) 374.795 ms 383.621 ms 389.235 ms17 212.58.238.153 (212.58.238.153) 384.954 ms 390.703 ms 390.643 ms
Here is a Sydney to Melbourne example. The packets hop onto the Telstra network in Sydney and then route to Melbourne. Again, the delays are what you would expect to see. Though you can see it takes longer for the packet to get from the router in my local exchange to the sydney ISP routers (22 ms) than it does for the packet to get from Sydney to Melbourne (about 10 ms). In optic fibre the speed of light is very close to 1 ms for every 100 km. So Sydney Melbourne being about 800 km (or more) would take at lease 8 ms. The other delays are likely due to buffering.
traceroute to telstra.com (144.140.108.23), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1 mygateway1.ar7 (192.168.1.1) 6.612 ms 1.734 ms 1.829 ms
2 syd-pow-cla-bras2-lo-20 (10.20.20.125) 21.779 ms 24.298 ms 22.256 ms
3 syd-pow-cla-csw1-vlan-10 (202.7.166.65) 22.280 ms 21.761 ms 21.960 ms
4 syd-pow-cla-crt1-ge-7-0 (202.7.162.141) 23.006 ms 22.623 ms 22.068 ms
5 syd-nxg-men-crt1-po7 (202.7.171.229) 21.845 ms 29.975 ms 22.035 ms
6 119.225.5.237 (119.225.5.237) 22.429 ms 22.784 ms 23.136 ms
7 * * *
8 bundle-ether15.ken39.sydney.telstra.net (165.228.132.205) 24.633 ms 23.534 ms 26.551 ms
9 bundle-ether6.ken-core4.sydney.telstra.net (203.50.6.145) 22.886 ms 22.725 ms 23.065 ms
10 bundle-pos3.win-core1.melbourne.telstra.net (203.50.11.13) 36.557 ms 35.503 ms 35.863 ms
11 tengigabitethernet8-1.exi2.melbourne.telstra.net (203.50.80.154) 34.898 ms 34.134 ms 33.820 ms
12 telstr312.lnk.telstra.net (139.130.1.246) 34.011 ms 34.727 ms 34.375 ms
13 * * *
Step 4: Type exit to end you terminal session. You can close it from the file menu.
192-168-1-1:~ UID$ exitlogout[Process completed]