Trippy combines the functionality of traceroute and ping and is designed to assist with the analysis of networking issues.

• Trippy
  • Features
  • Versions
  • Distributions
  • Crates
  • Privileges
  • Usage Examples
  • Command Reference
  • Theme Reference
  • Column Reference
  • Key Bindings Reference
  • Configuration Reference
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Acknowledgements
  • License

• Trace using multiple protocols:
  • ICMP, UDP & TCP
  • IPv4 & IPv6
• Customizable tracing options:
  • packet size & payload pattern
  • start and maximum time-to-live (TTL)
  • minimum and maximum round duration
  • round end grace period & maximum number of unknown hops
  • source & destination port (TCP & UDP)
  • source address and source interface
  • TOS (aka DSCP + ECN)
• Support for classic, paris and dublin Equal Cost Multi-path Routing strategies (tracking issue)
• RFC4884 ICMP Multi-Part Messages
  • Generic Extension Objects
  • MPLS Label Stacks
• Unprivileged mode
• NAT detection
• Tui interface:
  • Trace multiple targets simultaneously from a single instance of Trippy
  • Per hop stats (sent, received, loss%, last, avg, best, worst, stddev, jitter & status)
  • Per hop round-trip-time (RTT) history and frequency distributing charts
  • Interactive chart of RTT for all hops in a trace with zooming capability
  • Interactive GeoIp world map
  • Isolate and filter by individual tracing flows
  • Customizable color theme & key bindings
  • Customizable column order and visibility
  • Configuration via both command line arguments and a configuration file
  • Show multiple hosts per hop with ability to cap display to N hosts and show frequency %
  • Show hop details and navigate hosts within each hop
  • Freeze/unfreeze the Tui, reset the stats, flush the cache, preserve screen on exit
  • Responsive UI with adjustable refresh rate
  • Hop privacy
• DNS:
  • Use system, external (Google 8.8.8.8 or Cloudflare 1.1.1.1) or custom resolver
  • Lazy reverse DNS queries
  • Lookup autonomous system number (ASN) and name
• GeoIp:
  • Lookup and display GeoIp information from local MaxMind and IPinfo mmdb files
• Generate tracing reports:
  • json, csv & tabular (pretty-printed and markdown)
  • Tracing flows report
  • Graphviz dot charts
  • configurable reporting cycles
• Runs on multiple platform (macOS, Linux, Windows, NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD)
• Capabilities aware application (Linux only)

The following table lists ths versions of Trippy that are available and links to the corresponding release note and documentation:

cargo install trippy --locked

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fujiapple/trippy
sudo apt update && apt install trippy

snap install trippy

brew install trippy

winget install trippy

scoop install trippy

choco install trippy

pkgin install trippy

pkg install trippy

pkg_add trippy

pacman -S trippy

emerge -av net-analyzer/trippy

nix-env -iA trippy

docker run -it fujiapple/trippy

The following table lists the crates that are provided by Trippy. See crates for more information.

Trippy normally requires elevated privileges due to the use of raw sockets. Enabling the required privileges for your platform can be achieved in several ways, as outlined below. Trippy can also be used without elevated privileged on certain platforms, with some limitations.

1: Run as root user via sudo:

sudo trip example.com

2: chown trip as the root user and set the setuid bit:

sudo chown root $(which trip) && sudo chmod +s $(which trip)

3: [Linux only] Set the CAP_NET_RAW capability:

sudo setcap CAP_NET_RAW+p $(which trip)

Trippy must be run with Administrator privileges on Windows.

Trippy allows running in an unprivileged mode for all tracing modes (ICMP, UDP and TCP) on platforms which support that feature.

The unprivileged mode can be enabled by adding the --unprivileged (-u) command line flag or by adding the unprivileged entry in the trippy section of the configuration file:

[trippy]
unprivileged = true

Basic usage with default parameters:

trip example.com

Trace without requiring elevated privileges (supported platforms only, see privileges):

trip example.com --unprivileged

Trace using the udp (or tcp or icmp) protocol (also aliases --icmp, --udp & --tcp):

trip example.com -p udp

Trace to multiple targets simultaneously (icmp protocol only, see #72):

trip example.com google.com crates.io

Trace with a minimum round time of 250ms and a grace period of 50ms:

trip example.com -i 250ms -g 50ms

Trace with a custom first and maximum time-to-live:

trip example.com --first-ttl 2 --max-ttl 10

Use custom destination port 443 for tcp tracing:

trip example.com -p tcp -P 443

Use custom source port 5000 for udp tracing:

trip example.com -p udp -S 5000

Use the dublin (or paris) ECMP routing strategy for udp with fixed source and destination ports:

trip example.com -p udp -R dublin -S 5000 -P 3500

Trace with a custom source address:

trip example.com -p tcp -A 127.0.0.1

Trace with a source address determined by the IPv4 address for interface en0:

trip example.com -p tcp -I en0

Trace using IPv6:

trip example.com -6

Trace using ipv4-then-ipv6 fallback (or ipv6-then-ipv4 or ipv4 or ipv6):

trip example.com --addr-family ipv4-then-ipv6

Generate a json (or csv, pretty, markdown) tracing report with 5 rounds of data:

trip example.com -m json -C 5

Generate a Graphviz DOT file report of all tracing flows for a TCP trace after 5 rounds:

trip example.com --tcp -m dot -C 5

Generate a textual report of all tracing flows for a UDP trace after 5 rounds:

trip example.com --udp -m flows -C 5

Perform DNS queries using the google DNS resolver (or cloudflare, system, resolv):

trip example.com -r google

Lookup AS information for all discovered IP addresses (not yet available for the system resolver, see #66):

trip example.com -r google -z

Set the reverse DNS lookup cache time-to-live to be 60 seconds:

trip example.com --dns-ttl 60sec

Lookup and display short (or long or location or off) GeoIp information from a mmdb file:

trip example.com --geoip-mmdb-file GeoLite2-City.mmdb --tui-geoip-mode short

Parse icmp extensions:

trip example.com -e

Hide the IP address, hostname and GeoIp for the first two hops:

trip example.com --tui-privacy-max-ttl 2

Customize Tui columns (see Column Reference):

trip example.com --tui-custom-columns holsravbwdt

Customize the color theme:

trip example.com --tui-theme-colors bg-color=blue,text-color=ffff00

List all Tui items that can have a custom color theme:

trip --print-tui-theme-items

Customize the key bindings:

trip example.com --tui-key-bindings previous-hop=k,next-hop=j,quit=shift-q

List all Tui commands that can have a custom key binding:

trip --print-tui-binding-commands

Specify the location of the Trippy config file:

trip example.com --config-file /path/to/trippy.toml

Generate a template configuration file:

trip --print-config-template > trippy.toml

Generate bash shell completions (or fish, powershell, zsh, elvish):

trip --generate bash

Generate ROFF man page:

trip --generate-man

Run in silent tracing mode and output compact trace logging with full span events:

trip example.com -m silent -v --log-format compact --log-span-events full

A network diagnostic tool

Usage: trip [OPTIONS] [TARGETS]...

Arguments:
  [TARGETS]...
          A space delimited list of hostnames and IPs to trace

Options:
  -c, --config-file <CONFIG_FILE>
          Config file

  -m, --mode <MODE>
          Output mode [default: tui]

          Possible values:
          - tui:      Display interactive TUI
          - stream:   Display a continuous stream of tracing data
          - pretty:   Generate a pretty text table report for N cycles
          - markdown: Generate a Markdown text table report for N cycles
          - csv:      Generate a CSV report for N cycles
          - json:     Generate a JSON report for N cycles
          - dot:      Generate a Graphviz DOT file for N cycles
          - flows:    Display all flows for N cycles
          - silent:   Do not generate any tracing output for N cycles

  -u, --unprivileged
          Trace without requiring elevated privileges on supported platforms
          [default: false]

  -p, --protocol <PROTOCOL>
          Tracing protocol [default: icmp]

          Possible values:
          - icmp: Internet Control Message Protocol
          - udp:  User Datagram Protocol
          - tcp:  Transmission Control Protocol

      --udp
          Trace using the UDP protocol

      --tcp
          Trace using the TCP protocol

      --icmp
          Trace using the ICMP protocol

  -F, --addr-family <ADDR_FAMILY>
          The address family [default: Ipv4thenIpv6]

          Possible values:
          - ipv4:           Ipv4 only
          - ipv6:           Ipv6 only
          - ipv6-then-ipv4: Ipv6 with a fallback to Ipv4
          - ipv4-then-ipv6: Ipv4 with a fallback to Ipv6

  -4, --ipv4
          Use IPv4 only

  -6, --ipv6
          Use IPv6 only

  -P, --target-port <TARGET_PORT>
          The target port (TCP & UDP only) [default: 80]

  -S, --source-port <SOURCE_PORT>
          The source port (TCP & UDP only) [default: auto]

  -A, --source-address <SOURCE_ADDRESS>
          The source IP address [default: auto]

  -I, --interface <INTERFACE>
          The network interface [default: auto]

  -i, --min-round-duration <MIN_ROUND_DURATION>
          The minimum duration of every round [default: 1s]

  -T, --max-round-duration <MAX_ROUND_DURATION>
          The maximum duration of every round [default: 1s]

  -g, --grace-duration <GRACE_DURATION>
          The period of time to wait for additional ICMP responses after the
          target has responded [default: 100ms]

      --initial-sequence <INITIAL_SEQUENCE>
          The initial sequence number [default: 33434]

  -R, --multipath-strategy <MULTIPATH_STRATEGY>
          The Equal-cost Multi-Path routing strategy (UDP only) [default:
          classic]

          Possible values:
          - classic:
            The src or dest port is used to store the sequence number
          - paris:
            The UDP `checksum` field is used to store the sequence number
          - dublin:
            The IP `identifier` field is used to store the sequence number

  -U, --max-inflight <MAX_INFLIGHT>
          The maximum number of in-flight ICMP echo requests [default: 24]

  -f, --first-ttl <FIRST_TTL>
          The TTL to start from [default: 1]

  -t, --max-ttl <MAX_TTL>
          The maximum number of TTL hops [default: 64]

      --packet-size <PACKET_SIZE>
          The size of IP packet to send (IP header + ICMP header + payload)
          [default: 84]

      --payload-pattern <PAYLOAD_PATTERN>
          The repeating pattern in the payload of the ICMP packet [default: 0]

  -Q, --tos <TOS>
          The TOS (i.e. DSCP+ECN) IP header value (TCP and UDP only) [default: 0]

  -e, --icmp-extensions
          Parse ICMP extensions

      --read-timeout <READ_TIMEOUT>
          The socket read timeout [default: 10ms]

  -r, --dns-resolve-method <DNS_RESOLVE_METHOD>
          How to perform DNS queries [default: system]

          Possible values:
          - system:     Resolve using the OS resolver
          - resolv:     Resolve using the `/etc/resolv.conf` DNS configuration
          - google:     Resolve using the Google `8.8.8.8` DNS service
          - cloudflare: Resolve using the Cloudflare `1.1.1.1` DNS service

  -y, --dns-resolve-all
          Trace to all IPs resolved from DNS lookup [default: false]

      --dns-timeout <DNS_TIMEOUT>
          The maximum time to wait to perform DNS queries [default: 5s]

      --dns-ttl <DNS_TTL>
          The time-to-live (TTL) of DNS entries [default: 300s]

  -z, --dns-lookup-as-info
          Lookup autonomous system (AS) information during DNS queries [default:
          false]

  -s, --max-samples <MAX_SAMPLES>
          The maximum number of samples to record per hop [default: 256]

      --max-flows <MAX_FLOWS>
          The maximum number of flows to record [default: 64]

  -a, --tui-address-mode <TUI_ADDRESS_MODE>
          How to render addresses [default: host]

          Possible values:
          - ip:   Show IP address only
          - host: Show reverse-lookup DNS hostname only
          - both: Show both IP address and reverse-lookup DNS hostname

      --tui-as-mode <TUI_AS_MODE>
          How to render AS information [default: asn]

          Possible values:
          - asn:          Show the ASN
          - prefix:       Display the AS prefix
          - country-code: Display the country code
          - registry:     Display the registry name
          - allocated:    Display the allocated date
          - name:         Display the AS name

      --tui-custom-columns <TUI_CUSTOM_COLUMNS>
          Custom columns to be displayed in the TUI hops table [default:
          holsravbwdt]

      --tui-icmp-extension-mode <TUI_ICMP_EXTENSION_MODE>
          How to render ICMP extensions [default: off]

          Possible values:
          - off:  Do not show `icmp` extensions
          - mpls: Show MPLS label(s) only
          - full: Show full `icmp` extension data for all known extensions
          - all:  Show full `icmp` extension data for all classes

      --tui-geoip-mode <TUI_GEOIP_MODE>
          How to render GeoIp information [default: short]

          Possible values:
          - off:      Do not display GeoIp data
          - short:    Show short format
          - long:     Show long format
          - location: Show latitude and Longitude format

  -M, --tui-max-addrs <TUI_MAX_ADDRS>
          The maximum number of addresses to show per hop [default: auto]

      --tui-preserve-screen
          Preserve the screen on exit [default: false]

      --tui-refresh-rate <TUI_REFRESH_RATE>
          The Tui refresh rate [default: 100ms]

      --tui-privacy-max-ttl <TUI_PRIVACY_MAX_TTL>
          The maximum ttl of hops which will be masked for privacy [default: 0]

      --tui-theme-colors <TUI_THEME_COLORS>
          The TUI theme colors [item=color,item=color,..]

      --print-tui-theme-items
          Print all TUI theme items and exit

      --tui-key-bindings <TUI_KEY_BINDINGS>
          The TUI key bindings [command=key,command=key,..]

      --print-tui-binding-commands
          Print all TUI commands that can be bound and exit

  -C, --report-cycles <REPORT_CYCLES>
          The number of report cycles to run [default: 10]

  -G, --geoip-mmdb-file <GEOIP_MMDB_FILE>
          The supported MaxMind or IPinfo GeoIp mmdb file

      --generate <GENERATE>
          Generate shell completion

          [possible values: bash, elvish, fish, powershell, zsh]

      --generate-man
          Generate ROFF man page

      --print-config-template
          Print a template toml config file and exit

      --log-format <LOG_FORMAT>
          The debug log format [default: pretty]

          Possible values:
          - compact: Display log data in a compact format
          - pretty:  Display log data in a pretty format
          - json:    Display log data in a json format
          - chrome:  Display log data in Chrome trace format

      --log-filter <LOG_FILTER>
          The debug log filter [default: trippy=debug]

      --log-span-events <LOG_SPAN_EVENTS>
          The debug log format [default: off]

          Possible values:
          - off:    Do not display event spans
          - active: Display enter and exit event spans
          - full:   Display all event spans

  -v, --verbose
          Enable verbose debug logging

  -h, --help
          Print help (see a summary with '-h')

  -V, --version
          Print version

The following table lists the default Tui color theme. These can be overridden with the --tui-theme-colors command line option or in the theme-colors section of the configuration file.

The supported ANSI colors are:

• Black, Red, Green, Yellow, Blue, Magenta, Cyan, Gray, DarkGray, LightRed, LightGreen, LightYellow, LightBlue, LightMagenta, LightCyan, White

In addition, CSS named colors (i.e. SkyBlue) and raw hex values (i.e. ffffff) may be used but note that these are only supported on some platforms and terminals and may not render correctly elsewhere.

Color names are case-insensitive and may contain dashes.

The following table lists the default Tui command key bindings. These can be overridden with the --tui-key-bindings command line option or in the bindings section of the configuration file.

The supported modifiers are: shift, ctrl, alt, super, hyper & meta. Multiple modifiers may be specified, for example ctrl+shift+b.

The below table lists the columns that are available for display in the Tui. These can be overridden with the --tui-custom-columns command line option or in the tui-custom-columns attribute in the tui section of the configuration file.

The default columns are holsravbwdt.

Trippy can be configured with via command line arguments or an optional configuration file. If a given configuration item is specified in both the configuration file and via a command line argument then the latter will take precedence.

The configuration file location may be provided to Trippy via the -c (--config-file) argument. If not provided, Trippy will attempt to locate a trippy.toml or .trippy.toml configuration file in one of the following locations:

• The current directory
• The user home directory
• the XDG config directory (Unix only): $XDG_CONFIG_HOME or ~/.config
• the Windows data directory (Windows only): %APPDATA%

An annotated template configuration file is available for 0.9.0, 0.10.0 and 0.11.0.

Trippy (version 0.9.0 or later) can generate a template configuration file:

trip --print-config-template > trippy.toml

When Trippy shows “Awaiting data...” it means that it has received zero responses for the probes sent in a trace. This indicates that either probes are not being sent or, more typically, responses are not being received.

Check that local and network firewalls allow ICMP traffic and that the system traceroute (or tracert.exe on Windows) works as expected. Note that on Windows, even if tracert.exe works as expected, you must configure the Windows Defender firewall to allow incoming ICMP traffic.

For deeper diagnostics you can run tools such as https://www.wireshark.org and https://www.tcpdump.org to verify that icmp requests and responses are being send and received.

The Windows Defender firewall rule can be created using PowerShell.

New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "ICMPv4 Trippy Allow" -Name ICMPv4_TRIPPY_ALLOW -Protocol ICMPv4 -Action Allow
New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "ICMPv6 Trippy Allow" -Name ICMPv6_TRIPPY_ALLOW -Protocol ICMPv6 -Action Allow

The rules can be enabled as follows:

Enable-NetFirewallRule ICMPv4_TRIPPY_ALLOW
Enable-NetFirewallRule ICMPv6_TRIPPY_ALLOW

The rules can be disabled as follows:

Disable-NetFirewallRule ICMPv4_TRIPPY_ALLOW
Disable-NetFirewallRule ICMPv6_TRIPPY_ALLOW

The Windows Defender firewall rule may also be configured manually, see here for a step-by-step guide.

There are no specific recommended settings for Trippy, it provides a variety of configurable features which can be used to perform different types of analysis. The choice of settings will depend on the analysis you wish to perform and the environment in which you are working.

The following lists some common options along with some some basic guidance on when they might be appropriate.

By default Trippy will run an ICMP trace to the target. This will typically produce a consistent path to the target (a single flow) for each round of tracing which makes it easy to read and analyse. This is a useful mode for general network troubleshooting.

However, many routers are configured to rate-limit ICMP traffic which can make it difficult to get an accurate picture of packet loss. In addition, ICMP traffic is not typically subject to ECMP routing and so may not reflect the path that would taken by other protocols such as UDP and TCP.

To run a simple ICMP trace:

trip example.com

Due to the rate-limiting of ICMP traffic, some people prefer to hide the Loss% and Recv columns in the Tui as these are easy to misinterpret.

trip example.com --tui-custom-columns hosavbwdt

These settings can be made permanent by adding them to the Trippy configuration file:

[tui]
custom-columns = "hosavbwdt"

UDP tracing provides a more realistic view of the path taken by traffic that is subject to ECMP routing.

Setting a fixed target port in the range 33434-33534 may allow Trippy to determine that the probe has reached the target as many routers and firewalls are configured to allow UDP probes in that range and will respond with a Destination Unreachable response.

However, running a UDP trace with a fixed target port and a variable source port will typically result in different paths being followed for each probe within each round of tracing. This can make it difficult to interpret the output as different hosts will reply for a given hop (time-to-live) across rounds.

By using the dublin ECMP strategy, which encodes the sequence number in the IP identifier field, Trippy can fix both the source and target ports, typically resulting in a single path for each probe within each round of tracing.

To run a UDP trace with fixed source and target ports using the dublin ECMP strategy:

trip example.com --udp --multipath-strategy dublin --source-port 5000 --target-port 33434

These settings can be made permanent by adding them to the Trippy configuration file:

[strategy]
protocol = "udp"
multipath-strategy = "dublin"
source-port = 5000
target-port = 33434

As an extension to the above, if you do not fix the source port when using the dublin ECMP strategy, Trippy will vary the source port per round of tracing (i.e. each probe within a given round will share the same source port, and the source port will vary for each round). This will typically result in the same path being followed for each probe within a given round, but different paths being followed for each round.

These individual flows can be explored in the Trippy Tui by pressing the toggle-flows key binding (f key by default).

Adding the columns Seq, Sprt and Dprt to the Tui will show the sequence number, source port and destination port respectively which makes this easier to visualize.

trip example.com --udp --multipath-strategy dublin --target-port 33434 --tui-custom-columns holsravbwdtSPQ

These settings can be made permanent by adding them to the Trippy configuration file:

[strategy]
protocol = "udp"
multipath-strategy = "dublin"
target-port = 33434

[tui]
custom-columns = "holsravbwdtSPQ"

To make the flows easier to visualize, you can generate a Graphviz DOT file report of all tracing flows:

trip example.com --udp --multipath-strategy dublin --target-port 33434 -m dot -C 5

UDP with the paris ECMP strategy offers the same benefits as the dublin strategy with fixed ports and can be used in the same way.

They differ in the way they encode the sequence number in the probe. The dublin strategy uses the IP identifier field, whereas the paris strategy uses the UDP checksum field.

To run a UDP trace with fixed source and target ports using the paris ECMP strategy:

trip example.com --udp --multipath-strategy paris --source-port 5000 --target-port 33434

The paris strategy does not work behind NAT as the UDP checksum field is typically modified by NAT devices. Therefore the dublin strategy is recommended when NAT is present.

TCP tracing is similar to UDP tracing in that it provides a more realistic view of the path taken by traffic that is subject to ECMP routing.

TCP tracing defaults to using a target port of 80 and sets the source port as the sequence number which will typically result in a different path being followed for each probe within each round of tracing.

To run a TCP trace:

trip example.com --tcp

TCP tracing is useful for diagnosing issues with TCP connections and higher layer protocols such as HTTP. Often UDP tracing can be used in place of TCP to diagnose IP layer network issues and, as it provides ways to control the path taken by the probes, it is often preferred.

Trippy is made possible by ratatui ( formerly tui-rs), crossterm as well as several foundational Rust libraries.

Trippy draws heavily from mtr and also incorporates ideas from both libparistraceroute & Dublin Traceroute.

The Trippy networking code is inspired by pnet and some elements of that codebase are incorporated in Trippy.

The AS data is retrieved from the IP to ASN Mapping Service provided by Team Cymru.

The trippy.cli.rs CNAME hosting is provided by cli.rs.

The Trippy chat room is sponsored by Zulip.

This project is distributed under the terms of the Apache License (Version 2.0).

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in time by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.

See LICENSE for details.

Copyright 2022 Trippy Contributors