# Where did traceroute go?

## gnuageux

Hey yall, wondering where telnet is. emerge -s telnet shows that Ive got telnet-bsd installed, but apparently its not in my path. So telnet somehost someport doesnt work. Uhh?!?!?!

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## hecatomb

 *Quote:*   

> telnet-bsd
> 
> Description: Telnet and telnetd ported from OpenBSD with IPv6 support

 

So there should be a client within. Maybe find or locate will show you where it is.

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## gnuageux

Yeah, I thought that too. Tried that with no luck. Hmmm, not sure if I was smoking crack or somethng but now I found it. And it is in my path. (/usr/bin/telnet) hmmmm

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## gnuageux

LOL - OMG. Heh, I confused myself, not telnet, where is TRACEROUTE. hehehehe

Looks like I have traceroute installed 

```
*  net-analyzer/traceroute

      Latest version available: 1.4_p12-r2

      Latest version installed: 1.4_p12-r2

      Size of downloaded files: 73 kB

      Homepage:    http://ee.lbl.gov/

      Description: Utility to trace the route of IP packets

      License:     BSD

```

But I cant find it. The only traceroute app thats in my path is /usr/bin/traceroute6, what happened to good ol' traceroute?

```
grady@MindStab ~$  locate traceroute | grep bin

/usr/bin/traceroute6

```

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## hecatomb

Sorry I have no gentoo box available here at work.

On a suse I have this:

```
ls -l /usr/sbin/traceroute*

-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root        14176 2003-09-23 19:20 /usr/sbin/traceroute

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           10 2003-12-03 12:54 /usr/sbin/traceroute6 -> traceroute
```

re-emerging traceroute may help.

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## gnuageux

Yeah, maybe Ill give that a go. On my box here traceroute6 isnt linked to anything.

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## nightblade

Traceroute is installed by default in /usr/sbin, which, again by default, is in the $PATH of the root user only.

Su to root and you should be able to enjoy your traceroute  :Smile: 

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## gnuageux

Thx!

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## hyp0r

I don't see the reason for putting traceroute into /usr/sbin. Don't come with security, this is a lie.

So, what's the background for this kind of political and somehow useless decision?

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## Lucky B

sbin does not have anything to do with security.

from FHS standard:

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> /sbin : System binaries
> 
> Purpose
> ...

 

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## Flammie

 *hyp0r wrote:*   

> I don't see the reason for putting traceroute into /usr/sbin. Don't come with security, this is a lie.
> 
> So, what's the background for this kind of political and somehow useless decision?

 

traceroute is for system adminstration so it belongs to sbin and it isn't necessary bootup, system recovery or such so it belongs to usr?

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## hyp0r

 *Lucky B wrote:*   

> sbin does not have anything to do with security.

 

No, it does not. And no one claimed this.

And traceroute is no system administration tool. Rather a network analyzer, which is mostly useless for the host, where it is installed.

So what makes it become a root-only tool, although traceroute works for normal users and provides information about the network outside the host, not the host itself? The classification "system administration tool" is nonetheless wrong, too. Why is ping in /bin then? It's almost the same...

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## eagle_cz

traceroute ???

try tracepath  :Smile: 

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## hyp0r

 *eagle_cz wrote:*   

> traceroute ???
> 
> try tracepath 

 

tracepath? lol, this one's in /usr/sbin, too...

You like workarounds? I prefer solutions...

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## kashani

Don't think it's that simple. I've tracepath in two different places on two machines.

Personal server I've kept ticking along from Gentoo 1.4 and running 2.4 with old profile

/usr/bin/tracepath

New db server I installed on Monday running 2.6 and profile 2005.0

/usr/sbin/tracepath

Both have the same version of iputils installed. Odd.

kashani

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## hyp0r

Grr, after searching the bug-list, I found many reports and discussion, even hostile discussion, which cover this topic.

Mostly stupid yada yada.. I'm really impressed...  :Mad: 

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## Flammie

 *hyp0r wrote:*   

> So what makes it become a root-only tool, although traceroute works for normal users and provides information about the network outside the host, not the host itself? The classification "system administration tool" is nonetheless wrong, too. Why is ping in /bin then? It's almost the same...

 

It's a very common user task to find out response times of another server, however user is very unlikely going to need the exact route from here to another server. (Even if the rationalization here might sound good, more likely reasons here are purely historical.)

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## hyp0r

 *Flammie wrote:*   

> It's a very common user task to find out response times of another server, however user is very unlikely going to need the exact route from here to another server. (Even if the rationalization here might sound good, more likely reasons here are purely historical.)

 

And therefor traceroute is sbin? No, I don't think this is correct. This would imply, the user is not even allowed to choose.

However ping is not really an accurate way to test latency but rather a means of testing whether a host is up and is reacting within relative time bounds. And traceroute is a means to find out if a node on the way to a particular host is causing problems. This enables a "user" to report the problem not the administrator only. So, restricting traceroute due to security issues, as it is disussed in the bugreports can certainly not be the reason. Traceroute is still accessible to user's, just doing it explicity.

So, please no theories anymore. What is the real reason?

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## PovMan

bump

yes this is quite annoying. i want my traceroute in /usr/bin!

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## Xenocrates

Try net-analyzer/mtr... it's a sup'd up traceroute/ping program. Really nice for finding where problems are.

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## perseguidor

What's the problem with it, really? Just get used to it, and always put the absolute path, like I guess you also do with ifconfig.

```
/sbin/ifconfig

/usr/sbin/traceroute

```

I guess (just guessing, though) it also has to do with requiring root for being able to use all its functions. Kinda like nmap, I guess. But then again, that isn't in sbin...

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## bigfunkymo

sigh, does your mom hold your hand while you take a sith?

just add /usr/sbin to your path or make a symlink...

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## PovMan

 *bigfunkymo wrote:*   

> just add /usr/sbin to your path or make a symlink...

 

Bah, that's against the point. the point is that you shouldn't  HAVE to do that because the ebuild should put it somewhere accessible by default.

edit: thanks Xenocrates, mtr seems to work.

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## wjholden

 *bigfunkymo wrote:*   

> sigh, does your mom hold your hand while you take a sith?
> 
> just add /usr/sbin to your path or make a symlink...

 

Better yet, type out the entire path in good UNIX security-awareness since one would have had to either use sudo to get rights to the command or chmodded it... /usr/sbin/traceroute isn't a big deal to type out if you ask me when you've got the tab key...

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## christsong84

 *kashani wrote:*   

> Don't think it's that simple. I've tracepath in two different places on two machines.
> 
> Personal server I've kept ticking along from Gentoo 1.4 and running 2.4 with old profile
> 
> /usr/bin/tracepath
> ...

 

perhaps different baselayout?

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