Traceroute

From LinodeWiki

If you are having trouble reaching your Linode, your first thought may be that something has happened to it. The Internet is a big place, and the problem could lie somewhere between you and the data center the Linode is being hosted in. The easiest way to check for this is to trace the route of the packets. The most common method is mtr. This tool ships with most Linux distributions A sample output:

kjotte@polaris:~$ mtr --report -n www.linode.com
HOST: polaris                     Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
  1. 172.31.4.254                  0.0%    10    2.8   1.9   1.4   2.8   0.5
  2. 24.40.141.1                   0.0%    10   32.4  18.0   9.8  44.3  11.3
  3. 66.26.33.157                  0.0%    10   13.7  15.5  10.5  31.5   6.2
  4. 24.93.64.2                    0.0%    10   47.9  25.8  16.3  53.8  13.7
  5. 66.109.6.82                   0.0%    10   24.3  31.4  24.3  62.9  11.4
  6. 66.109.6.171                  0.0%    10   23.6  30.2  21.5  56.9  12.6
  7. 66.109.10.198                 0.0%    10   59.0  31.0  20.2  59.0  12.9
  8. 68.86.85.157                  0.0%    10   46.2  51.9  46.2  82.8  11.0
  9. 68.86.88.50                   0.0%    10   57.1  47.4  41.6  66.7   8.2
 10. 70.87.253.18                  0.0%    10   86.2  50.3  42.7  86.2  12.7
 11. 70.87.253.126                 0.0%    10   44.5  92.8  42.1 223.8  72.7
 12. 12.96.160.44                  0.0%    10   43.9  53.9  41.5  93.0  17.4
 13. 67.18.186.61                  0.0%    10   44.1  49.9  41.0  86.5  13.9

This sample shows a good trace from North Carolina to Linode's Texas data center. Problems along the way would be indicated by non-zero values in the Loss column, or the trace not reaching its destination.

If you are working with Linode staff on IRC to diagnose the problem, you may be asked to Pastebin the output of this command for examination.