mtr is a network diagnostic utility that combines the functionality of ping and traceroute. It continuously examines the route between a local computer and a destination, providing statistics about individual network hops.
Unlike traceroute, which normally performs a single investigation, mtr continues sending probes and updating its measurements. This makes it useful for identifying intermittent connectivity problems and changes in network performance.
The software is widely used by network administrators and support engineers. Its interactive interface helps investigate routes visually, while reporting modes allow results to be collected for troubleshooting and comparison. Apparent packet loss at an intermediate router does not necessarily indicate that the router is dropping forwarded traffic.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Combine route discovery with continuous latency measurements.
- Display each responding hop between the source and destination.
- Calculate packet loss and round-trip statistics for individual hops.
- Support ICMP, UDP and TCP probing.
- IPv4 and IPv6 connectivity analysis.
- Interactive terminal display with continuously updated measurements.
- Configurable packet sizes, probe intervals and hop limits.
- Display minimum, average, maximum and variation in response times.
- Investigate multiple routes and addresses associated with a hop.
- Optional autonomous system number information.
- Generate text, CSV, XML and JSON reports.
- Run investigations without the interactive display for automation.
- Graphical and terminal-based interfaces.
Website: github.com/traviscross/mtr
Support:
Developer: Matt Kimball, Roger Wolff and contributors
License: GNU General Public License v2.0
mtr is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Alternatives to ping | |
|---|---|
| pingnoo | Offers a graphical representation for traceroute and ping output (GUI) |
| hping3 | Supports TCP, UDP, ICMP and RAW-IP protocols with traceroute mode |
| gping | Ping but with a graph |
| GNOME Nettool | Performs ping, netstat, traceroute, port scans, lookup, and whois (GUI) |
| mtr | Combines 'traceroute' and 'ping' programs in a single network tool |
| pingtop | Ping multiple servers and show the result in a top like terminal UI |
| pingu | Command implementation in Go but with colorful output and pingu ascii art |
| 2ping | Bi-directional ping tool using 3-way pings (akin to TCP SYN, SYN/ACK, ACK) |
| BWPing | Measures bandwidth and response times between two hosts using ICMP |
| cnping | Minimal graphical IPv4 Ping / HTTP tool |
| fping | Send ICMP echo probes to network hosts |
| SmokePing | Measure, store and display latency, latency distribution and packet loss |
| tcping | ICMP ping but for TCP |
| alive | Periodic ping |
| ping3 | Python3 version of ICMP ping |
| echoping | Testing tool for network protocols |
| xping | Continuously probe multiple hosts using icmp-echo |
| omping | Test IPv4/IPv6 multicast connectivity on a LAN |
| Trippy | Network diagnostic tool combining the functionality of ping & traceroute |
| Echo | Simple GUI GTK4 utility to ping websites |
| pingstat | Multi-server ping logging |
| myping | Ping multiple hosts at the same time |
| mtr085 | Fork of mtr adding functionality such as Unicode histograms |
| mtr-gtk | GUI frontend |
| Ping Monitor | Displays real-time ping times (GUI) |
| split ping | See the direction of loss or latency |
| ring | ping rewritten in Rust |
| Alternatives to traceroute | |
|---|---|
| Pingnoo | Analyse network latency and routing problems visually (GUI) |
| mtr | Combines 'traceroute' and 'ping' programs in a single network tool |
| GNOME Nettool | Performs ping, netstat, traceroute, port scans, lookup, and whois (GUI) |
| LFT | Layer Four Traceroute |
| Dublin Traceroute | NAT-aware multipath tracerouting tool |
| OVTR | Java-based tool (GUI) |
| Trippy | Network diagnostic tool combining the functionality of ping & traceroute |
| mtr085 | Fork of mtr adding functionality such as Unicode histograms |
| mtr-gtk | GUI frontend |
| Fastrace | Designed for network diagnostics and performance analysis |
| NextTrace | Visual route tracking CLI tool |
| OpenTrace | GUI wrapper for NextTrace |
| ETR | MTR-like tool for discovering and analyzing ECMP network routes |
| ttl | Network diagnostic tool that goes beyond traceroute |
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