Reverse traceroute

Traceroute is the most widely used Internet diagnostic tool today. Network operators use it to help identify routing failures, poor performance, and router misconfigurations. Researchers use it to map the Internet, predict performance, geolocate routers, and classify the performance of ISPs. However, traceroute has a fundamental limitation that affects all these applications: it does not provide reverse path information. Although various public traceroute servers across the Internet provide some visibility, no general method exists for determining a reverse path from an arbitrary destination. In this paper, we address this longstanding limitation by building a reverse traceroute system. Our system provides the same information as traceroute, but for the reverse path, and it works in the same case as traceroute, when the user may lack control of the destination. We use a variety of measurement techniques to incrementally piece together the path from the destination back to the source. ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2010
• Where: NSDI
• Authors: Ethan Katz-Bassett, Harsha V. Madhyastha, Vijay Kumar Adhikari, Colin Scott, Justine Sherry, Peter van Wesep, Thomas E. Anderson, Arvind Krishnamurthy
• Keywords: Computer Networks, NSDI 2010, Reverse Path, Reverse Traceroute, Traceroute