Welcome to tracetcp.

Full documentation available here: http://simulatedsimian.github.io/tracetcp.html

tracetcp is a command line traceroute utility for WIN32 that uses TCP SYN packets rather than ICMP/UDP packets that the usual implementations use, thus bypassing gateways that block traditional traceroute packets.

In addition to providing the functionality of the standard traceroute utility tracetcp allows a trace to be performed over any TCP port. This allows the discovery of what ports a filewall blocks and also the presence of any transparent proxies that have been put in place.

System Requirements

You MUST install the winpcap library (http://www.winpcap.org) for this version to work. tracetcp has been tested with version 3.* and 4.* of this library.

Previous versions of tracetcp used raw sockets but Microsoft took out support for Raw TCP sockets in XP SP2, and as tracetcp uses this feature it caused it to stop working.

There is an article about this here that may be of interest: http://seclists.org/lists/nmap-hackers/2005/Apr-Jun/0000.html

In order to allow the program to function with XP sp2 it now uses the winpcap library to send and receive packets. The downside of using this is that the program will not function over dial-up connections.

tracetcp has been tested on on Windows XP, Vista & 7. You must be logged on to the System as a user that has administrator rights to use tracetcp.

Installation

You MUST install the winpcap library (http://www.winpcap.org) first. Just copy tracetcp.exe into a directory that is in you system PATH.

Usage

From the command prompt:

tracetcp host [options]
    where host = hostName|ipAddress[:portNumber|serviceName]
    if portNumber or serviceName is not present then port 80 (http) 
    is assumed.

Options:
    -?            Displays help information.

    -c            Select condensed output mode

    -h start_hop  Starts trace at hop specified.

    -m max_hops   Maximum number of hops to reach target.

    -n            No reverse DNS lookups for each node.

    -p num_pings  # of pings per hop (default 3).

    -r p1 p2      Multiple traces from port p1 to p2.

    -t timeout    Wait timeout milliseconds for each reply.

    -v            Displays version information.

    -s p1 p2      Easy port scan mode. gives the same result as
                  setting the following options:
                  -cnr p1 p2 -h 128 -m 1 -p 1

    -F            Disables the Anti-flood timer. Normally tracetcp
                  waits *at least* 0.5 seconds between sending out 
                  each packet, because if the packets are sent too 
                  fast some host seem to detect this as some form of 
                  flood and stop responding for a time. This option 
                  disables the 0.5 second timer, so the traces occur
                  faster.

    -R            Use raw socket interface to send/receive packets
                  this will not work on XP sp2. 
                  (you still need winpcap installed)

    -g address    use the specified host as a a gateway to remote
                  systems rather than the default gateway.


Examples:
    tracetcp www.microsoft.com:80 -m 60
    tracetcp post.sponge.com:smtp
    tracetcp 192.168.0.1 -n -t 500

Revision History

version 1.0.2 07-01-2016

• if destination reached but port is closed, this maybe due to some hosts not allowing connections with ttl = 0. Resend ping with large ttl to see if its really closed.

version 1.0.1 05-01-2016

• make a generated SYN packet look as much like a SYN from chrome on windows as packets with no options were being dropped by some hosts

version 1.0.0 23-06-2014

• Upgraded solution to Visual Studio 2013
• Moved Repo to GitHub

version 0.99.4 beta 23-05-2005

• fixed problem with in-accurate hop timing.

version 0.99.3 beta 21-05-2005

• added winpcap support to bypass Microsofts removal of raw tcp sockets in xp sp2.
• added -g option to override the default gateway
• added -R option to revert to using raw sockets

version 0.99.2 beta 23-04-2004

• Added -s option for "Easy port scan"
• Added abitity to combine options on the command line e.g -cnr 10 30 instead of -c -n - r 10 30
• Updated readme.txt with more info about software firewalls.
• Fixed bug in anti-flood timeout code.
• Added -F option to disable the anti-flood timer.
• complete ip header construction - not leaving any fields for winsock to fill in now.

version 0.99.1 beta 25-08-2003

• Added start hop option (-h) and changed help to -?
• Added port range option -r to allow port scanning
• Separated Tracing code and results display so that different display formats can be supported.
• Added Condensed output mode (-c)
• Added pings per hop option (-p)
• Fixed a few Problems with the way packets were built
• Visual Studio project files now included in source archive

version 0.99 beta 19-08-2003

• First release on sourceforge.

version 0.90beta 21-07-2003

• Internal test version.