Where did your web site go?

| Sep 07, 2010 | Comments 3



You’re having problems reaching one of your hosted web servers on the Internet. Before today, you were able to perform a traceroute and reach the server in 14 hops. Today, the traceroute times-out after 7 hops. What is the most likely cause of this issue?

A) You have a problem with your local Internet connection

B) The Internet connection at your web hosting provider is down

C) One of the intermediate Internet connections is down

D) The local computer is not connected to the Internet

E) The Internet is looking for 7 bunnies


The answer: C) One of the intermediate Internet connections is down

A traceroute timeout in about the first three hops might indicate a problem locally, and a timeout in the last three hops could indicate an issue at the remote site. Because the traceroute fails in the middle of 14 hops, the issue is most-likely related to an Internet provider in middle of the data flow.


Want to know more? Watch “Network Troubleshooting Tools.”

There are many network troubleshooting tools available at the command line. In this video, you’ll learn how to use tools such as ping, tracert, nslookup, netstat, and many others.

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Filed Under: CompTIA A+ Pop Quizzes

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  • Laurent La Brie

    I’ve never heard of the Internet not finding another route that works, which is the basic foundational principle of the Internet. Can you explain how one link falling would make tracert fail?

    • http://www.ProfessorMesser.com Professor Messer

      Although the technologies used on the Internet include many opportunities for redundancy and resiliency, there are no requirements to force the inclusion of backup connections. There have been many cases where major sections of Internet connectivity are lost due to natural disasters or technological faults. Many networks are redundant, but it’s usually financially and technologically impractical to build 100% availability into a network.

  • Jeff

    James is correct. I’ve worked as a firewall admin in the past and have experienced the issue in the question many times.