| Traceroute and Traceroute6 are both network diagnostic tools, but they are designed for different network protocols. Here's the key difference between them: Traceroute is for IPv4, while Traceroute6 is for IPv6. Depending on the network infrastructure you are dealing with, you would choose the appropriate tool to trace the route of packets. Many modern systems support both IPv4 and IPv6, so you might use either tool based on the type of address you're working with. Sometimes, you may need to check if remote server is reachable by traceroute like below: traceroute foo.com
Above shows the result like below which is based on IPv4 % traceroute yahoo.com
traceroute: Warning: yahoo.com has multiple addresses; using 98.137.11.164
traceroute to yahoo.com (98.137.11.164), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 13.124 ms 7.384 ms 8.167 ms
2 12.197.211.17 (12.197.211.17) 20.829 ms 9.853 ms 7.983 ms
3 32.142.247.33 (32.142.247.33) 25.013 ms 67.076 ms 31.878 ms
4 * * *
5 * * *
6 * * *
7 32.130.90.123 (32.130.90.123) 8.407 ms 30.977 ms 8.105 ms
8 lax-b23-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.45.150) 11.794 ms 8.686 ms 7.936 ms
9 sjo-b23-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.116.40) 19.611 ms 15.306 ms 16.512 ms
10 sea-b1-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.132.153) 215.500 ms 89.163 ms 71.839 ms
11 oathholdings-ic-328471.ip.twelve99-cust.net (62.115.36.197) 147.092 ms 35.657 ms 40.370 ms
12 ae-7.pat2.gqb.yahoo.com (209.191.65.45) 118.945 ms
ae-10.pat1.gqb.yahoo.com (209.191.65.47) 48.253 ms
ae-7.pat2.gqb.yahoo.com (209.191.65.45) 102.889 ms
13 et-0-0-8.msr2.gq2.yahoo.com (66.196.67.117) 48.582 ms
et-19-0-8.msr2.gq2.yahoo.com (66.196.67.119) 37.961 ms
et-8-0-8.msr2.gq1.yahoo.com (66.196.67.115) 38.643 ms
14 et-1-1-0.clr1-a-gdc.gq2.yahoo.com (98.136.158.173) 112.520 ms
et-0-0-0.clr2-a-gdc.gq2.yahoo.com (98.136.158.183) 45.265 ms 120.968 ms
15 lo0.fab7-1-gdc.gq2.yahoo.com (98.136.159.241) 36.815 ms
lo0.fab3-1-gdc.gq2.yahoo.com (98.136.159.245) 37.790 ms
lo0.fab6-1-gdc.gq2.yahoo.com (98.136.159.242) 49.296 ms
16 usw1-1-lbc.gq2.yahoo.com (98.136.158.192) 102.752 ms 45.503 ms
usw2-1-lbc.gq2.yahoo.com (98.136.158.193) 131.550 ms
17 media-router-fp73.prod.media.vip.gq1.yahoo.com (98.137.11.164) 40.355 ms 42.813 ms 44.017 ms
If you want to traceroute based on IPv6, you can try it by traceroute6 % traceroute6 yahoo.com
traceroute6: Warning: yahoo.com has multiple addresses; using 2001:4998:44:3507::8000
traceroute6 to yahoo.com (2001:4998:44:3507::8000) from 2600:381:f52c:3424:4ff:166c:f229:f3a6, 64 hops max, 28 byte packets
1 2600:381:f52c:3424:3808:33b5:819c:8b1a 30.751 ms 8.387 ms 11.926 ms
2 2606:ae00:b800:6111::d 39.669 ms * 33.151 ms
3 2600:300:20e8:407::3 22.864 ms 47.992 ms *
4 2001:1890:ff:ffff:12:122:83:80 48.581 ms 50.918 ms 56.617 ms
5 2001:1890:ff:ffff:12:122:83:80 46.537 ms 41.549 ms 45.607 ms
6 * * *
7 2001:1890:f6:1803::2 49.108 ms 41.104 ms 55.822 ms
8 * *
lax-b23-link.ip.twelve99.net 108.467 ms
9 lax-b22-v6.ip.twelve99.net 55.200 ms 65.065 ms 53.739 ms
10 phx-b5-v6.ip.twelve99.net 69.897 ms * *
11 * * *
12 kanc-bb2-v6.ip.twelve99.net 118.755 ms
yahoo-ic319092-dls-b23.ip.twelve99-cust.net 82.214 ms 241.806 ms
13 ae-13.pat1.dnx.yahoo.com 307.294 ms
2001:1890:1fff:200:192:205:32:214 158.465 ms 114.450 ms
14 ae-5.pat2.nez.yahoo.com 129.263 ms 129.122 ms 147.892 ms
15 2001:4998:f000:1d::1 122.412 ms * *
16 2001:4998:47:e::1 95.201 ms 90.660 ms *
17 yahoo-ic319092-dls-b23.ip.twelve99-cust.net 95.143 ms
ae-13.pat1.dnx.yahoo.com 100.133 ms 94.548 ms
18 et30.usw1-1-lbd.ne1.yahoo.com 133.918 ms
et25.usw1-1-lbd.ne1.yahoo.com 98.666 ms
ae-5.pat2.nez.yahoo.com 111.805 ms
19 et-19-1-1.msr2.ne1.yahoo.com 105.671 ms * *
20 * *
et-12-0-1.msr1.ne1.yahoo.com 141.430 ms
21 2001:4998:47:3::1 115.500 ms * *
22 2001:4998:44:fa24::1 98.171 ms
2001:4998:47:28::1 182.480 ms
et27.usw2-1-lbd.ne1.yahoo.com 104.098 ms
23 * * *
24 * * *
25 * * *
26 * * *
27 * * *
28 * * *
29 * * *
30 * * *
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