[UPC] What do you make of these trace-routes?

DECEiFER

Hi,

Been examining packet routes this evening and quite shocked at these results. Most of these traces are to the US but some are domestic (Google.com and YouTube.com, for example).

Any IPs like 84.116.x.x or 213.46.x.x and DNS ending in aorta.net belongs to UPC. Usually the 84.116.x.x ranges seem to physically be in Austria unless a DNS is resolved with a location (such as: uk-lon01b-rd1-xe-1-2-0.aorta.net [84.116.134.134]). This is a great way to get the real location. Copy the exact link and put the IP at the end or just go over to http://www.dnsstuff.com and use the "IP Information" tool. You'll need to register after you've used the tool twice, but there's a free trial until the end of August this year and there's no requirement to supply payment information upon activating your trial.

Notice how bad Netflix is? Jesus. But the massive jump to >200ms is not within AORTA. It's still bad, though, within the AORTA backbone.

Concerning YouTube and Google, look at 213.46.165.142. This is part of UPC's network and is physically located in Dublin. It was fine earlier today but it was bad last night (I was checking as I noticed lag when streaming Google I/O live), so I'm guessing that it could be congestion due to being over capacity.

Everything appears fine for the most part. I can still download at full speed and browsing seems alright, but if the times were much higher, you'd definitely notice slower site loading times a lot easier.

Is there anyone else on UPC getting these results or worse? Also, is there anyone on UPC getting much better results?

DreamHost.com:

Tracing route to dreamhost.com [208.97.187.204] with TTL of 32:

 1  0ms    0ms    0ms    READYSHARE [10.0.0.1]
 2  8ms    7ms    8ms    109.255.192.1
 3  6ms    7ms    6ms    109.255.251.158
 4  91ms   95ms   93ms   84.116.238.98
 5  93ms   90ms   91ms   84.116.138.9
 6  91ms   104ms  92ms   84-116-130-141.aorta.net [84.116.130.141]
 7  91ms   91ms   91ms   84.116.137.194
 8  92ms   93ms   91ms   te-0-13-0-2-pe01.111eighthave.ny.ibone.comcast.net [173.167.56.153]
 9  95ms   94ms   95ms   pos-1-5-0-0-cr01.newyork.ny.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.85.17]
10  99ms   107ms  96ms   he-4-11-0-0-cr01.ashburn.va.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.85.13]
11  111ms  120ms  121ms  he-4-8-0-0-cr01.56marietta.ga.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.89.170]
12  132ms  132ms  132ms  pos-1-4-0-0-cr01.dallas.tx.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.88.226]
13  163ms  164ms  164ms  he-0-11-0-0-cr01.losangeles.ca.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.87.37]
14  164ms  161ms  207ms  as26347.losangeles.ca.ibone.comcast.net [75.149.228.206]
15  169ms  162ms  162ms  ip-69-163-188-134.dreamhost.com [69.163.188.134]
16  161ms  161ms  161ms  dreamhost.com [208.97.187.204]

Traceroute complete.



RND-Studios.com (my own domain hosted by DreamHost):

Tracing route to apache2-heavy.jenkins.dreamhost.com [208.113.199.168] with TTL of 32:

 1  0ms    0ms    0ms    READYSHARE [10.0.0.1]
 2  9ms    7ms    9ms    109.255.192.1
 3  6ms    7ms    6ms    109.255.254.158
 4  97ms   95ms   95ms   84.116.238.150
 5  97ms   97ms   134ms  84.116.134.130
 6  97ms   96ms   97ms   us-nyc01c-rd1-pos-1-0-0.aorta.net [213.46.160.206]
 7  97ms   95ms   97ms   84.116.137.38
 8  98ms   94ms   96ms   us-was03a-ri1-xe-0-1-0.aorta.net [84.116.130.166]
 9  97ms   112ms  96ms   206.126.236.86
10  123ms  96ms   97ms   xe-1-0-0.er5.iad10.us.above.net [64.125.24.133]
11  98ms   96ms   97ms   208.185.23.134.t00867-03.above.net [208.185.23.134]
12  98ms   99ms   99ms   ip-208-113-156-6.dreamhost.com [208.113.156.6]
13  99ms   100ms  102ms  ip-208-113-156-14.dreamhost.com [208.113.156.14]
14  97ms   97ms   97ms   apache2-heavy.jenkins.dreamhost.com [208.113.199.168]

Traceroute complete.



YouTube.com:

Tracing route to de-in-f93.1e100.net [74.125.24.93] with TTL of 32:

 1  0ms    0ms    0ms    READYSHARE [10.0.0.1]
 2  8ms    7ms    8ms    109.255.192.1
 3  6ms    6ms    6ms    109.255.254.158
 4  11ms   11ms   10ms   84.116.238.150
 5  93ms   91ms   84ms   213.46.165.142
 6  12ms   11ms   12ms   209.85.252.196
 7  11ms   11ms   12ms   72.14.235.187
 8   *      *      *     Request timed out.
 9  11ms   12ms   11ms   de-in-f93.1e100.net [74.125.24.93]

Traceroute complete.



Google.com:

Tracing route to de-in-f102.1e100.net [74.125.24.102] with TTL of 32:

 1  0ms    0ms    0ms    READYSHARE [10.0.0.1]
 2  8ms    15ms   7ms    109.255.192.1
 3  6ms    8ms    14ms   109.255.251.158
 4  16ms   16ms   13ms   84.116.238.98
 5  14ms   11ms   13ms   84.116.134.94
 6  84ms   83ms   80ms   213.46.165.142
 7  11ms   15ms   17ms   209.85.252.196
 8  9ms    17ms   16ms   72.14.235.187
 9   *      *      *     Request timed out.
10  21ms   13ms   11ms   de-in-f102.1e100.net [74.125.24.102]

Traceroute complete.



Netflix.com:

Tracing route to www.trynetflix.com [69.53.236.17] with TTL of 32:

 1  0ms    0ms    0ms    READYSHARE [10.0.0.1]
 2  7ms    6ms    8ms    109.255.192.1
 3  5ms    7ms    7ms    109.255.251.158
 4  170ms  164ms  163ms  84.116.238.98
 5  167ms  165ms  165ms  uk-lon01b-rd1-xe-1-2-0.aorta.net [84.116.134.134]
 6  91ms   90ms   90ms   84-116-130-234.aorta.net [84.116.130.234]
 7  165ms  165ms  165ms  84.116.137.222
 8  166ms  166ms  233ms  mpr1.sjc7.us [206.223.116.86]
 9  168ms  169ms  209ms  xe-5-2-0.cr1.sjc2.us.above.net [64.125.27.90]
10  168ms  166ms  182ms  xe-4-3-0.er1.sjc2.us.above.net [64.125.28.53]
11  273ms  263ms  252ms  64.124.65.90.allocated.above.net [64.124.65.90]
12  249ms  249ms  250ms  xe-2-3-0-945.jnrt-edge02.sv1.netflix.com [208.75.77.197]
13  270ms  255ms  255ms  xe-2-2-0-955.jnrt-edge02.prod1.netflix.com [69.53.225.30]
14  182ms  179ms  179ms  te1-8.csrt-agg02.prod1.netflix.com [69.53.225.10]
15  267ms  262ms  260ms  www.trynetflix.com [69.53.236.17]

Traceroute complete.


NYTimes.com:

Tracing route to 170.149.168.130 with TTL of 32:

 1  0ms    0ms    0ms    READYSHARE [10.0.0.1]
 2  9ms    8ms    7ms    109.255.192.1
 3  6ms    7ms    7ms    109.255.254.158
 4  96ms   91ms   90ms   84.116.238.150
 5  89ms   89ms   90ms   84.116.137.213
 6  90ms   96ms   89ms   84.116.133.182
 7  90ms   91ms   90ms   84.116.135.98
 8  92ms   90ms   90ms   above.net [198.32.118.25]
 9  113ms  91ms   90ms   xe-0-3-0.cr2.lga5.us.above.net [64.125.21.82]
10  92ms   92ms   91ms   xe-1-0-0.cr1.lga5.us.above.net [64.125.29.45]
11  93ms   91ms   92ms   xe-2-2-0.mpr1.ewr1.us.above.net [64.125.27.133]
12  101ms  92ms   93ms   xe-0-0-0.mpr1.ewr4.us.above.net [64.125.25.246]
13  95ms   92ms   94ms   64.125.173.70.t01646-03.above.net [64.125.173.70]
14  91ms   91ms   91ms   170.149.168.130

Traceroute complete.



LATimes.com:

Tracing route to 163.192.187.17 with TTL of 32:

 1  0ms    0ms    0ms    READYSHARE [10.0.0.1]
 2  8ms    8ms    9ms    109.255.192.1
 3  7ms    7ms    9ms    109.255.254.158
 4  121ms  127ms  156ms  84.116.238.150
 5  123ms  123ms  124ms  ch-zrh02a-ra1-xe-2-1-0.aorta.net [84.116.130.114]
 6  102ms  101ms  102ms  us-nyc01b-rd1-gi-4-0-0.aorta.net [84.116.130.30]
 7  149ms  137ms  123ms  84.116.137.169
 8   *      *      *     Request timed out.
 9  129ms  124ms  124ms  chi1-ar3-xe-0-0-0-0.us.twtelecom.net [66.192.251.154]
10  125ms  124ms  126ms  64.132.86.118
11  125ms   *      *     163.192.21.130
12  124ms  124ms  123ms  163.192.187.17

Traceroute complete.



Facebook.com:

Tracing route to edge-star-shv-13-frc1.facebook.com [173.252.110.27] with TTL of 32:

 1  0ms    0ms    0ms    READYSHARE [10.0.0.1]
 2  8ms    8ms    8ms    109.255.192.1
 3  6ms    6ms    5ms    109.255.251.158
 4  27ms   26ms   24ms   84.116.238.98
 5  26ms   25ms   53ms   uk-lon01b-rd1-xe-1-1-2.aorta.net [84.116.132.45]
 6  24ms   23ms   24ms   84.116.133.230
 7  43ms   43ms   43ms   linx.br01.lhr1.tfbnw.net [195.66.225.69]
 8  45ms   42ms   44ms   ae1.bb02.lhr2.tfbnw.net [31.13.30.198]
 9  130ms  131ms  131ms  be5.bb02.dca1.tfbnw.net [31.13.30.236]
10  125ms  132ms  125ms  ae9.bb02.frc1.tfbnw.net [31.13.31.235]
11  134ms  122ms  123ms  ae2.dr01.frc1.tfbnw.net [31.13.24.17]
12   *      *      *     Request timed out.
13   *      *      *     Request timed out.
14  127ms  128ms  130ms  edge-star-shv-13-frc1.facebook.com [173.252.110.27]

Traceroute complete.

Moriarty

It's not as easy as that

For the likes of dreamhost, the NY Times or LA times it's no surprise that they're hosted in the US as they're US companies aiming for the US market. ~90ms to the eastern seaboard and ~120ms to the western seaboard aren't bad at all.

Facebook, Google (which includes youtube) and Netflix results are pretty meaningless. The DNS for their main sites may point to a server farm in the US, but any content you fetch from them (site graphics, photos, videos.. basically almost everything) comes to you from datacentres far closer to you - probably no further than the UK in most cases and quite often in Ireland itself using CDNs.

DECEiFER

Moriarty wrote: »

It's not as easy as that

For the likes of dreamhost, the NY Times or LA times it's no surprise that they're hosted in the US as they're US companies aiming for the US market. ~90ms to the eastern seaboard and ~120ms to the western seaboard aren't bad at all.

Facebook, Google (which includes youtube) and Netflix results are pretty meaningless. The DNS for their main sites may point to a server farm in the US, but any content you fetch from them (site graphics, photos, videos.. basically almost everything) comes to you from datacentres far closer to you - probably no further than the UK in most cases and quite often in Ireland itself using CDNs.

Sorry, I neglected to mention that my site is hosted in VA. DreamHost since last year have expanded into an east coast data center and I immediately asked them to be transferred. Their main site is hosted in LA but not my account. They don't just target the US, they consider themselves a viable option for international customers, particularly since expanding to VA.

I know watching videos on Netflix would be fine due to their CDN. It's the fact that the route through Aorta seems congested that is my concern. Take the YouTube/Google trace-routes for example, the 213.46.x.x IP in question is located in Dublin and the times are far greater than they should be for something that's only a few hundred kilometers away.

I've noticed lately that YouTube sometimes gets stuck, even at 480p. I need to refresh once or twice to kick-start the buffering. It shouldn't be like that on a 100Mb/s connection so I'm not sure if it's UPC or if it's Google at fault, or somewhere in between. The numbers in the trace-routes overall do look somewhat alarming, in particular the ones in Europe that are part of the Aorta backbone.

Moriarty

The increase in reported ping in the middle of the traceroute is just an indication that a router is deprioritising replying to your ping packet. It still passes traffic through it with no issues and no increase in latency as you can see by the ping of the last hop on each of your traces.

The last hop is the only real one that counts (and sometimes even that is unreliable) as devices along the path quite often delay their response to pings slightly or don't reply at all as you've seen in your traces.

DECEiFER

Moriarty wrote: »

The increase in reported ping in the middle of the traceroute is just an indication that a router is deprioritising replying to your ping packet. It still passes traffic through it with no issues and no increase in latency as you can see by the ping of the last hop on each of your traces.

The last hop is the only real one that counts (and sometimes even that is unreliable) as devices along the path quite often delay their response to pings slightly or don't reply at all as you've seen in your traces.

In the past, I've always seen the numbers increase with every hop (most of the time) and when there's high numbers in between, I've always attributed that to a problem along the way. It's what I was told once by a networking expert. So I did those traces today and I saw red. I'll have to educate myself more on this. I was going to post this in the UPC board and ask that they look into it but I re-considered just in case I was on the wrong track.

Thank you for your replies, Moriarty.

LaserChicken

Hi! I m kinda new to this stuff and I was wondering- How do you trace from your network to the destination IP. I was trying to trace ping to a dedicated server using ping.eu but all i was doing is tracking the ping between ping.eu server and the destination dedicated server. What I did was I added the ping between my IP and the ping.eu + ping.eu to the dedicated server but the pathing could be better.
I enqured from Virgin media (UPC) an IP of their server to try and track that one but since I wasn't using a business account they said I wasn't entitled to an static IP.

Cuddlesworth

Open a command line interface and run the inbuilt traceroute program.

In windows that can be cmd.exe or powershell.exe using the syntax "tracert IP/DNS". For example

C:\Users\k>tracert boards.ie

Tracing route to boards.ie [104.20.1.160]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms pfsenserouter.localdomain [192.168.2.1]
2 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 10.252.176.1
3 7 ms 9 ms 9 ms 109.255.251.29
4 10 ms 9 ms 11 ms ie-dub01a-ra3-ae35-0.aorta.net [84.116.238.66]
5 8 ms 11 ms 9 ms 84-116-130-142.aorta.net [84.116.130.142]
6 11 ms 21 ms 8 ms dbln-t2core-a-ae-0-0.aorta.net [213.46.165.2]
7 9 ms 11 ms 13 ms dln-b2-link.telia.net [80.91.247.71]
8 9 ms 17 ms 120 ms cloudflare-ic-310815-dln-b2.c.telia.net [62.115.55.14]
9 12 ms 11 ms 8 ms 104.20.1.160


In linux or OSX you use terminal, the command is "traceroute IP/DNS"