Why tracert does not show the same gateway address as in ipconfig

networkingroute

I am confused by the following:

C:\>ipconfig
....
        Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : some address here
        IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.77.121.54
        Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
        Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.77.121.1

From the above, the gateway for my pc is 10.77.121.1. But when I use the tracert, the first IP address is different as you can see from the following. It is 10.77.121.3. Why?

C:\tracert 10.75.89.100

Tracing route to 10.75.89.100
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    29 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  10.77.121.3
  2    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  10.77.0.34
  3     1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  10.77.0.45
  4    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  10.75.89.100

Best Answer

It looks like the gateway you're using may be using VRRP or HSRP. 10.77.121.1 is a virtual/logical address, which you use as your gateway, but when you trace route one of the physical routers responds. (10.77.121.3)

Related Topic