Install mtr Command on Linux | Easy and Best Setup

In this guide on the Orcacore website, we want to teach you How To Install mtr Command on Linux and start Using it. MTR (My Traceroute) or Matt’s TraceRoute is one of the most popular Traceroute tools available online. The tool has become one of the go-to tools for replacing Ping and Traceroute. MTR network monitor is an invaluable diagnostic tool that can be used to poll remote servers and measure the change of latency over time.

MTR is a useful tool for a number of reasons. First, it combines Ping and Traceroute together to be able to measure the availability of devices in the network as well as monitor the route. However, it also has a significant advantage over Traceroute because the output is updated continuously. With Traceroute, you have to update scans manually to measure how a network’s performance changes over time.

In contrast, you can run MTR and your information will be connected until you say stop. Being able to monitor the change in network performance over time helps when it comes to troubleshooting.

Table of Contents

Steps To Install and Use the mtr command on Linux

To complete this guide, you can log in to your Linux server as a root or non-root user with sudo privileges. Then, follow the steps below to see how it works.

1. Install mtr Command on Linux

You can easily install mtr on your server. On Debian / Ubuntu systems use the command below to install mtr:

sudo apt install mtr -y

On CentOS / RHEL use the following commands:

# yum install mtr
# dnf install mtr

When your installation is completed, proceed to the next step to start using the mtr command on Linux.

2. How To Use mtr on Linux?

When using the mtr network scanner, you need to generate an mtr report to view your traffic data. mtr reports are directional, so it is necessary to generate reports in both directions to get a complete picture of your network’s performance.

In this section, we’re going to look at:

Display Hostnames
Display Numeric IP addresses
Specify a limit for the number of pings
Enable Report Mode
Clear output in Report
Specify Time Interval between ICMP ECHO requests
Use TCP SYN packets or UDP datagrams
Specify packet size
Print CSV Output
Print XML Output
Accessing the mtr help and man page

The basic syntax for the mtr command is as follows:

mtr <option> <hostname>/path

Display Hostnames and Numeric IP address

The mtr command displays the hostnames in the traceroute report. To do this, you can use the following command:

mtr [domainName/IP]

For example:

mtr google.com

Install mtr Command on Linux - Display Hostnames

Also, you can use the -g option, to see the numeric IP addresses instead of hostnames:

mtr -g google.com

To see both hostnames and IP addresses, you can use the -b option in the mtr command:

mtr -b google.com

Set a limit for the Number of Pings

You can easily configure the mtr command to set a limit for your pings. The syntax used to do this is as follows:

mtr -c [n] “domainname/IP”

For example:

mtr -c 10 google.com

Enable mtr Report Mode

Instead of looking at the screen all the time, we can let mtr do the job for a while and read the result later with the -r option. For example:

mtr -r google.com

You can specify a ping count for which you want to limit the report through the -c option, and also specify the report filename in which the report will be saved. For example:

mtr -r -c 10 google.com >mtr-report-google

The report is saved in the current user’s home folder by default. You can, however, specify a proper path for the report to be saved in.

Also, you can clear output in the mtr report mode. To do this, you can add the -w option. For example:

mtr -rw -c 10 google.com >mtr-report-google

Specify Time Interval

At this point, after Install and use the mtr command on Linux, you can slow down the packets you sent with the -i option:

mtr -i [time-in-seconds] “domainName/IP”

For example:

mtr -i 10 google.com

The omitted output is the same as if we don’t use the -i option. The only difference is the slower increase of the value in the Snt column. The default value of -i is 1, so this command is 10 times slower, meaning the interval between sent packets is 10 times longer.

The option is useful when we don’t want to swamp the network with our packets.

TCP and UDP

If you want to use the TCP SYN or the UDP datagrams for requesting mtr instead of the default ICMP ECHO requests, you can do so by using the TCP and UDP flags respectively. Syntax:

$ mtr –tcp “domainName/IP”
$ mtr –udp “domainName/IP”

For example:

$ mtr --tcp google.com
$ mtr --udp google.com

Specify packet size

Through the -s option in the mtr command, you can specify the size, in bytes, of the IP packet for diagnosing network quality.

Syntax:

mtr –r -s [packetsize] “domainName/IP”

For example:

mtr -r -s 50 google.com

Print CSV Output

The CSV output of the mtr report delimits the columns with a “,”. With the csv option, you can customize the mtr command to output the report in a CSV format.

Syntax:

mtr –csv “domainName/IP”

For example:

mtr --csv google.com

Print XML Output

The mtr command can also support the XML format for printing traceroute reports. The XML report is a good option for automated processing of the output and can be printed by specifying the XML option with the mtr command.

Syntax:

mtr –xml “domainName/IP”

For example:

mtr --xml google.com

mtr help and man page

Finally, after reading the Install and Use the mtr command on Linux article, you can get more options for usage and customization of the mtr command on Linux by reading its help and man page through the following commands:

man mtr

mtr --help

Conclusion

At this point, you have learned to Install and Use the mtr command on Linux. The purpose of using the mtr command in Linux is to diagnose network issues by combining the functions of traceroute and ping. It provides real-time insights into network latency and packet loss along the route to a destination, helping troubleshoot connectivity problems.

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