SYNOPSIS
tcptraceroute [-nNFSAE] [ -i interface ] [ -f first ttl ][ -l length ] [ -q number of queries ] [ -t tos ]
[ -m max ttl ] [ -p source port ] [ -s source address ]
[ -w wait time ] host [ destination port ] [ length ]
DESCRIPTION
tcptraceroute is a traceroute implementation using TCP packets.The more traditional traceroute(8) sends out either UDP or ICMP ECHO packets with a TTL of one, and increments the TTL until the destination has been reached. By printing the gateways that generate ICMP time exceeded messages along the way, it is able to determine the path packets are taking to reach the destination.
The problem is that with the widespread use of firewalls on the modern Internet, many of the packets that traceroute(8) sends out end up being filtered, making it impossible to completely trace the path to the destination. However, in many cases, these firewalls will permit inbound TCP packets to specific ports that hosts sitting behind the firewall are listening for connections on. By sending out TCP SYN packets instead of UDP or ICMP ECHO packets, tcptraceroute is able to bypass the most common firewall filters.
It is worth noting that tcptraceroute never completely establishes a TCP connection with the destination host. If the host is not listening for incoming connections, it will respond with an RST indicating that the port is closed. If the host instead responds with a SYN|ACK, the port is known to be open, and an RST is sent by the kernel tcptraceroute is running on to tear down the connection without completing three-way handshake. This is the same half-open scanning technique that nmap(1) uses when passed the -sS flag.
OPTIONS
- -n
Enable DNAT detection, and display messages when DNAT transitions are observed. DNAT detection is based on the fact that some NAT devices, such as some Linux 2.4 kernels, do not correctly rewrite the IP address of the IP packets quoted in ICMP time-exceeded messages tcptraceroute solicits, revealing the destination IP address an outbound probe packet was NATed to. NAT devices which correctly rewrite the IP address quoted by ICMP messages, such as some Linux 2.6 kernels, will not be detected. For some target hosts, it may be necessary to use --dnat in conjunction with --track-port. See the examples.txt file for examples.
Enable DNAT detection for the purposes of correctly identifying ICMP time-exceeded messages that match up with outbound probe packets, but do not display messages when a DNAT transition is observed. This is the default behavior.
Do not perform any DNAT detection whatsoever. No attempt will be made match up ICMP time-exceeded messages with outbound probe packets, and when tracerouting through a NAT device which does not rewrite the IP addresses of the IP packets quoted in ICMP time-exceeded messages, some hops along the path may appear to be unresponsive. This option should not be needed in the vast majority of cases, but may be utilized if it is suspected that the DNAT detection code is misidentifying ICMP time-exceeded messages.
EXAMPLES
Please see the examples.txt file included in the tcptraceroute distribution for a few real world examples.To trace the path to a web server listening for connections on port 80:
- tcptraceroute webserver
To trace the path to a mail server listening for connections on port 25:
- tcptraceroute mailserver 25