How is route tracing performed in Linux using tracert or similar commands?

In Linux, the traceroute command is used to trace the route to a remote host (similar to Windows tracert). It shows the sequence of intermediate routers (hops) that packets pass through.

Working principle:

• traceroute sends packets with gradually increasing TTL (Time To Live) values.
• Each router decreases TTL by 1, and if TTL reaches 0, it sends back an ICMP "Time Exceeded" message.
• By receiving these messages, traceroute determines the addresses of intermediate nodes and the time to reach them.

Example usage:

traceroute example.com

The output will show a list of routers with the response time to each.

If traceroute is not installed, you can use tracepath or mtr for similar functionality.