From 9f55a76245151ff78c43f99bf8b5c24b36e9a41f Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Darafei Praliaskouski Date: Fri, 8 May 2026 01:53:32 +0400 Subject: [PATCH] docs: clarify how mtr probes hops --- README.md | 14 +++++++++----- 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-) diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 13d8af1..717bd35 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -5,11 +5,15 @@ mtr combines the functionality of the 'traceroute' and 'ping' programs in a single network diagnostic tool. As mtr starts, it investigates the network connection between the host -mtr runs on and a user-specified destination host. After it -determines the address of each network hop between the machines, -it sends a sequence of ICMP ECHO requests to each one to determine the -quality of the link to each machine. As it does this, it prints -running statistics about each machine. +mtr runs on and a user-specified destination host. It sends probes to +the destination with successively larger time-to-live values, and uses +the responses from intervening routers to discover and measure the path. +As it does this, it prints running statistics for each hop. + +Intermediate routers may be configured to never send these ICMP +responses, or may rate-limit them, so apparent loss at an intermediate +hop does not always mean that forwarded traffic is being lost at that +point. mtr is distributed under the GNU General Public License version 2. See the COPYING file for details. -- 2.47.3