How to Run Traceroute with Advanced Options in Linux & Windows

Let’s face it—nobody likes a slow website. But what’s even worse? Not knowing why it's slow.

In today’s hyper-connected world, where businesses rely heavily on cloud hosting to keep their services up and running 24/7, knowing how data travels from one point to another is crucial. According to a 2024 report by Cybersecurity Ventures, cyber threats and misconfigured networks are responsible for over 40% of downtime issues on cloud-hosted platforms. When milliseconds matter, especially in real-time apps and e-commerce websites hosted on platforms like Cyfuture Cloud, tools like traceroute can be your best friend.

But here’s the kicker—most people run traceroute using default options and never get to explore the powerful advanced features that can actually give you deeper insights into network bottlenecks, timeouts, or faulty routing.

This blog will show you how to run traceroute with advanced options on both Linux and Windows—so you’re not just guessing what’s going on with your network, you're getting answers.

What is Traceroute and Why Should You Care?

Before diving into the commands, let’s get the basics straight.

Traceroute is a network diagnostic tool used to track the path packets take from your machine to a destination server. Each point the packet passes through is called a hop, and traceroute lists each of these hops along with the time it takes for each.

This becomes especially important when you're dealing with cloud-based infrastructure. Imagine your application is hosted on Cyfuture Cloud, and users from Europe are complaining about lag. Traceroute can help you trace whether the delay is happening within your cloud server, somewhere in the ISP’s network, or during the handoff between data centers.

Running Traceroute on Windows with Advanced Options

Basic Traceroute Command in Windows

On Windows, the traceroute command is known as tracert.

Here’s how you use it:

This gives you a basic path with up to 30 hops by default. But that’s just the surface.

Advanced Tracert Options in Windows

Let’s level up. Below are some powerful options you might not be using:

1. Set Maximum Number of Hops

Limit the number of hops to trace:

Useful when you're diagnosing a cloud route within a specific region and don’t want to trace all the way out to a far server.

2. Set Timeout Duration (in milliseconds)

Specify the wait time for each reply:

Ideal if you're troubleshooting a high-latency hosting server that might be responding slower than usual.

3. Disable IP Address Resolution

Skip reverse DNS lookup:

This gives quicker results and is perfect when you're not concerned about the domain names of intermediate hops.

4. Traceroute Using IPv6

If your cloud infrastructure or Cyfuture Cloud servers are using IPv6:

When Should You Use Advanced Tracert on Windows?

Troubleshooting connectivity to a specific cloud data center

Reducing the load on the DNS server during diagnostics

Getting faster results in enterprise-scale networks

Running Traceroute on Linux with Advanced Options

In Linux, traceroute is way more versatile out of the box compared to Windows.

Basic Linux Command:

This works fine for most cases, but if you’re a sysadmin or dev working with cloud-native applications, you’ll want to dig deeper.

Install Traceroute (if not installed)

Now, let’s talk advanced options:

1. Disable DNS Resolution

traceroute -n example.com

Gives faster output, shows only IPs—handy for routing diagnostics on internal cloud networks.

2. Set Packet Size

traceroute -q 3 -w 2 -m 15 example.com

-q: Number of queries per hop (3 in this case)

-w: Wait time per probe (2 seconds)

-m: Max hops (15)

This is excellent for tight cloud environments or VPC-level routing where you need precise control.

3. Use TCP Instead of UDP

Default traceroute uses UDP. You can switch to TCP for more accurate path tracing to firewall-protected hosting servers.

sudo traceroute -T example.com

Why TCP? Because many hosting firewalls drop ICMP or UDP packets, but allow TCP (like port 80 or 443).

4. Specify the Destination Port

traceroute -p 443 -T example.com

Very useful when tracing to a cloud-hosted HTTPS server.

Real-World Use Case: Diagnosing Cloud Routing Issues

Let’s say your e-commerce platform hosted on Cyfuture Cloud is suddenly seeing drop-offs from Asia-based users. You run this on Linux:

traceroute -T -p 443 -n www.yourdomain.com

You see timeouts between hop 8 and 10. That’s your clue. Something’s going wrong in the routing path between your CDN edge and the cloud hosting region serving Asia. Without traceroute (and these advanced options), you’d be flying blind.

Traceroute + Other Tools: Next-Level Troubleshooting

Sometimes traceroute alone isn’t enough. Here are a few combos that pros use:

mtr: Combines traceroute + ping in real time

ping: Verify if the destination is actually reachable

netstat and ss: Check port connections from your hosting server

When you're hosting multiple services on Cyfuture Cloud, these tools help maintain uptime, routing efficiency, and minimal latency.

Best Practices When Using Traceroute

Always disable DNS if you're in a hurry.

Saves you from waiting on slow reverse lookups.

Use TCP when debugging secure servers.

Especially true for cloud-hosted apps behind firewalls.

Compare results from multiple endpoints.

A traceroute from India and another from the US may reveal different issues due to how cloud load balancers route traffic.

Log your traceroute outputs.

This helps identify patterns or recurring bottlenecks.

Conclusion: Make Traceroute Work For You, Not Just At You

Traceroute is like a GPS for your data. It shows you where things slow down, where they stop, and sometimes, where they break altogether. But just like with any tool, its real power is unlocked when you know how to go beyond the defaults.

Running advanced traceroute options on Windows and Linux gives you the control to troubleshoot faster, smarter, and more efficiently. Whether you're managing a single site or multiple apps hosted across cloud servers, these diagnostics can save hours of guesswork.

Platforms like Cyfuture Cloud offer robust performance and enterprise-grade cloud hosting, but even the best infrastructure can be affected by routing issues beyond your control. Knowing how to interpret and use traceroute puts you in the driver’s seat.

So next time someone says, “The site’s slow,” you won’t panic. You’ll open your terminal, run a quick traceroute with advanced options, and know exactly where to look.