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Will traceroute work if ping is blocked?

Author

William Rodriguez

Published Jan 06, 2026

By default traceroute sends UDP packets to track the route to a given host, while ping uses ICMP. But traceroute works processing ICMP packets returned by the routers in the route to the destination host. This means that if you only block outgoing ICMP packets, ping won't work but traceroute will.

Can ping but traceroute fails?

Does Traceroute Work If Ping Is Disabled? Because of this, ping will not work if you restrict outgoing ICMP packets, but traceroute. To prevent this problem, traceroute must be able to receive ICMP packets from the router in the route, although blocking incoming ICMP packets will stop it from receiving the messages.

What happens if ICMP is blocked?

If these ICMP messages are blocked, the destination system continuously requests undelivered packets and the source system continues to resend them infinitely but to no avail, since they are too large to pass through the complete path from the source to the destination.

Does traceroute require ICMP?

A traceroute works by sending Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) packets, and every router involved in transferring the data gets these packets.

Can you block traceroute?

With this behavior in mind, to block Windows traceroutes, create a security rule using the "ping" application. To block Unix traceroutes use a custom application created for UDP ports 33434-33534.

44 related questions found

Does traceroute use ICMP echo?

Traceroute most commonly uses Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) echo packets with variable time to live (TTL) values. The response time of each hop is calculated.

Does traceroute show all hops?

Traceroute will then show you a List of all intermediate jumps (which are all routers the packet has gone through) along with IP Addresses and Latency (delay) Values in Milliseconds for each hop.

Does traceroute use UDP or ICMP?

Traditional traceroute uses UDP on incrementing ports for every hop. You can use any sort of packet to implement it - ICMP, TCP SYN, etc. All it takes is the IP packet expiring and you are golden.

Why traceroute uses UDP by default not ICMP?

According to the Stevens (TCP/IP Illustrated) the traceroute program sends UDP packets to the destination host with an incremental TTL (1, 2, 3, etc) to get the intermediate hops info from the ICMP TTL EXPIRED messages.

Does ping use ICMP?

ICMP is probably most well known as the message protocol used for the ping command. A ping command sends an ICMP echo request to the target host. The target host responds with an echo reply.

Should ping be blocked?

Many network administrators feel that ICMP is a security risk, and should therefore always be blocked at the firewall. It is true that ICMP does have some security issues associated with it, and that a lot of ICMP should be blocked. But this is no reason to block all ICMP traffic!

Can ping be blocked?

Ping uses Internet Control Message Protocol, this also is used for other errors and stuff like preventing a packet ending up in an infinite loop around a group of routers. By blocking ICMP Echo Request packets or just not responding to them you can block a ping without blocking all other control codes.

How do I know if ICMP is blocked?

1 Answer

  1. change 1 to 0 in the above file.
  2. Or run the command: iptables -I INPUT -i ech0 -p icmp -s 0/0 -d 0/0 -j ACCEPT.

What happens if traceroute fails?

If your traceroute attempt stops at a particular hop or node and cannot find a route to the host, you have a problem. While the hop where the route fails to return may be the location of the networking issue, it isn't always that easy to diagnose.

How do you know if a traceroute is successful?

If the target server is reached, the ICMP Code 0, Echo Reply will be sent and thus Traceroute knows the job is finished. In this case the target server is reached well before the maximum hop counts. So what we saw is a successful traceroute attempt.

What is the difference between traceroute and Tracepath?

Tracepath and traceroute are very similiar network mapping commands. The main difference between the two is that you need to be a superuser on a Linux computer to use traceroute, whereas tracepath can be run without this credential. On a Windows PC, any user with command line access can use both diagnostic tools.

How does traceroute work with UDP?

The traceroute command attempts to trace the route an IP packet follows to an Internet host by launching UDP probe packets with a small maximum time-to-live (Hops parameter), then listening for an ICMP TIME_EXCEEDED response from gateways along the way.

Does ping use UDP?

Ping uses ICMP(Internet Control Message Protocol). it does not use TCP or UDP. To be more precise ICMP type 8(echo request message) and type 0(echo reply message) are used.

What UDP port does traceroute use?

After googling I found out that 33434 is the port that is used as the base port for traceroute .

Does traceroute use echo request?

On Windows, tracert sends ICMP Echo Request packets, rather than the UDP packets traceroute sends by default. The time-to-live (TTL) value, also known as hop limit, is used in determining the intermediate routers being traversed towards the destination.

Can traceroute command work across the firewall?

Its called TCP traceroute. Its used because almost all firewall and routers in between allows you to send TCP traffic.

What ICMP type is traceroute?

Traceroute is implemented with ICMP messages. It works by sending ICMP echo (ICMP type '8') messages to the same destination with increasing value of the time-to-live (TTL) field. The routers along the traceroute path return ICMP Time Exceeded (ICMP type '11' ) when the TTL field become zero.

Why does traceroute give different results on different networks?

Trace route provides a description of the path between your current IP address and a destination IP address in the form of hops. By “different networks” in your question it would seem you are changing the source and hence it would be impossible to get the same result.

What do traceroute results mean?

A traceroute displays the path that the signal took as it traveled around the Internet to the website. It also displays times which are the response times that occurred at each stop along the route. If there is a connection problem or latency connecting to a site, it will show up in these times.

How exactly does traceroute tracert work at the protocol level?

Traceroute (tracert) works by sending a packet to an open UDP port on a destination machine. The router then discards the packet and sends off an ICMP notification packet to the original host with the message that the TTL expired from the router. Traceroute transmits packets with small TTL (Time To Live) values.