Why MTR prints multiple IPs as the latest node?

Question

I run the following command in the terminal to trace the routes between my computer and 167.99.31.209:

mtr -n --tcp 167.99.31.209 --port 1111

This it the output of above command after awhile:

Why it prints multiple IP addresses in the last lines as the last node? Seeing multiple IP addresses for nodes 2 to 16 is intelligible (because of different routing nodes), but having different IP address for last node is weird because I'm seeking for routes to 167.99.31.209, not any other IP address.

Answer 1

That's not necessarily the last node.

The issue here is that once mtr gets the first set of replies, it doesn't update the number of rows anymore. The first path that was seen had 17 hops, but later it changed to 18 or 19 or 20.

(In general, mtr's interface is completely unsuitable for displaying traces which take multiple completely different paths. Even if the paths were of equal lengths, there's no way for you to distinguish which addresses belong to which path...)

When this happens, your best option is to press R to restart the trace.