Why there are always 10% of loss when testing with mtr command?

Question

For example, if I run this command against example.com, with mtr command, I always get 10% of loss, no matter how many time I run, why exactly is 10%?

mtr --report 192.0.43.10
HOST: localhost Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
  1.|-- ip-10-28-120-1.eu-west-1.  0.0%    10    0.5   1.8   0.4  11.4   3.4
  2.|-- ip-10-5-34-126.eu-west-1.  0.0%    10    0.4   2.5   0.4   8.9   2.9
  3.|-- 100.64.12.4                0.0%    10    0.5   0.6   0.4   0.7   0.1
  4.|-- 100.64.12.11               0.0%    10    0.5   0.6   0.4   0.9   0.1
  5.|-- ec2-79-125-1-98.eu-west-1  0.0%    10    0.8   0.7   0.6   0.8   0.1
  6.|-- 178.236.1.4                0.0%    10    0.8   0.8   0.6   0.9   0.1
  7.|-- 178.236.0.138              0.0%    10    1.3   1.4   1.3   1.6   0.1
  8.|-- 178.236.0.121              0.0%    10    1.4   1.7   1.3   4.2   0.9
  9.|-- 213.242.106.85             0.0%    10    1.7   1.6   1.4   1.8   0.1
 10.|-- ae-1-4.bar1.Dublin3.Level  0.0%    10    2.3   2.4   2.3   2.6   0.1
 11.|-- ae-12-12.ebr2.Paris1.Leve  0.0%    10   96.0  96.2  95.9  97.5   0.5
 12.|-- ae-42-42.ebr2.Washington1  0.0%    10   97.4  97.2  97.0  97.5   0.2
 13.|-- ae-62-62.csw1.Washington1  0.0%    10   98.3  99.3  98.1 104.0   2.0
 14.|-- ae-1-60.edge1.Washington1  0.0%    10   95.8 103.2  95.7 158.6  19.8
 15.|-- INTERNET-CO.edge1.Washing  0.0%    10  101.5 101.5 101.4 101.8   0.1
 16.|-- 43-10.any.icann.org       10.0%    10   99.1 102.1  98.2 107.2   3.8

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 28 '13 at 09:34

4

The 43-10.any.icann.org may have the priority for ICMP echo requests used by mtr lowered. The mtr tools is not 100% reliable to measure packet losses. Try using the iperf tool instead that can use UDP datagrams instead of ICMP echo requests to measure packet loss.

answered Feb 28 '13 at 09:34

Guardian

199
4

1

mtr also has option (-u) to use UDP datagrams instead of ICMP echo requests – fpmurphy Feb 28 '13 at 15:08

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 28 '14 at 22:01

3

There's actually a bug in mtr for report mode that mis counts the last packet. It's fixed in a newer version (mtr v0.80)

See: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mtr/+bug/966065 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=611739

answered Mar 28 '14 at 22:01

Simon

31
1

Ten packets, one lost, 10% loss. – David Schwartz Mar 28 '14 at 22:06

Why there are always 10% of loss when testing with mtr command?

2 Answers2