Routing – interpreting ping results

nat;routing

I'm pinging yahoo.com and am I'm puzzled by the result.

C:\Users\jon>ping -t yahoo.com

Pinging yahoo.com [98.138.253.109] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=195ms TTL=46
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=230ms TTL=44
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=175ms TTL=45
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=208ms TTL=44
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=180ms TTL=46
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=206ms TTL=44
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=209ms TTL=44
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=173ms TTL=46
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=170ms TTL=46
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=224ms TTL=45
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=200ms TTL=45
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=172ms TTL=46
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=258ms TTL=44

I vaguely understand the TTL value as the number of hops that the packet traverses to reach its destination, but I don't understand how TTL can have such a dramatic +/- 1 variance in such a short amount of time.

Also, it seems Yahoo has some kind of rate-limiting implemented as a persistent ping will start timing out after about 20 packets. Is this normal? bing.com doesn't even reply to me!

When pinging google.com the TTLs are consistent.

When pinging Twitter.com sometimes I get TTL=249, but usually TTL-58.

What's going on? Are my ISP up to no good or is there a less sinister explanation?

Best Answer

Most likely this is caused by load balancing across multiple networks. Each ping will take a different path and accordingly will have a difference TTL value.

I also read about search engine providers doing strange things with TTL, but its just going through a different route either way.

TTL values are different when sourced from different operating systems:

  • Windows: 128
  • Linux: 64
  • Cisco: 255
  • Solaris: 255

And yes, some sites will stop responding to ICMP after a certain amount of time, or when a rate limit is hit. I believe Google's DNS on 8.8.8.8 eventually stops after a while.

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