Tips for Using MTR a Linux Networking Tools

MTR combines the functionality of the traceroute and ping programs in a single net-work diagnostic tool. MTR is networking tools available on Linux. As mtr starts, it investigates the network connection between the host mtr runs on and a user-specified destination host.

Mtr is fairly easy to use once you have a look at the different options possible:

OPTIONS
-h help
Print the summary of command line argument options.

-v –version
Print the installed version of mtr.

-r –report
This option puts mtr into report mode. When in this mode, mtr will run for
the number of cycles specified by the -c option, and then print statistics and
exit.
This mode is useful for generating statistics about network quality. Note
that each running instance of mtr generates a significant amount of network
traffic. Using mtr to measure the quality of your network may result in
decreased network performance.

-p –split
Use this option to set mtr to spit out a format that is suitable for a split-
user interface.

-l –raw
Use this option to tell mtr to use the raw output format. This format is better
suited for archival of the measurement results. It could be parsed to be
presented into any of the other display methods.

-a IP.ADD.RE.SS

–address IP.ADD.RE.SS
Use this option to bind outgoing packets’ socket to specific interface, so
that any packet will be sent through this interface. NOTE that this option
doesn’t apply to DNS requests (which could be and could not be what you want).

-c COUNT –report-cycles COUNT
Use this option to set the number of pings sent to determine both the machines
on the network and the reliability of those machines. Each cycle lasts one
second.

-s BYTES –psize BYTES

PACKETSIZE
These options or a trailing PACKETSIZE on the commandline sets the packet size
used for probing. It is in bytes inclusive IP and ICMP headers

If set to a negative number, every iteration will use a different, random
packetsize upto that number.

-t –curses
Use this option to force mtr to use the curses based terminal interface (if available).

-n –no-dns
Use this option to force mtr to display numeric IP numbers and not try to
resolve the host names.

-g –gtk
Use this option to force mtr to use the GTK+ based X11 window interface (if
available). GTK+ must have been available on the system when mtr was built
for this to work. See the GTK+ web page at
www DOT gimp DOTorg/gtk/for more information about GTK+.

-i SECONDS

–interval SECONDS
Use this option to specify the positive number of seconds between ICMP ECHO
requests. The default value for this parameter is one second.

-4
Use IPv4 only.

-6
Use IPv6 only.