Which diagnostic tool reveals the path a packet takes through the network?

Optimize your success on the FSNA Readiness Exam. Engage with flashcards and multiple choice questions, each designed with hints and explanations. Prepare thoroughly for your test and excel!

Traceroute reveals the path packets take by making each hop reveal itself. It sends probes with a small initial TTL and then increases that TTL with subsequent probes. As a router along the path decrements the TTL and it hits zero, the router discards the packet and sends back an ICMP Time Exceeded message to the sender. By collecting the responses from each hop, the tool maps out every router the packets pass through to reach the destination, along with the time taken to reach each hop.

Ping, on the other hand, checks whether a specific host is reachable and measures the round-trip time to that host, but it doesn’t expose the route taken. A DNS lookup translates a domain name into an IP address, and an ARP table shows local network mappings between IP addresses and MAC addresses. Neither of these reveal the path packets traverse.