Get-Trace Cmdlet

Parameters   Output Objects   Config Settings  

The Get-Trace component allows you to trace the path IP packets take on the Internet.

Syntax

Get-Trace [parameters]

Remarks

This cmdlet implements a standard IP Traceroute as defined in RFC 1393.

To make a trace with the cmdlet, set the Server to the domain name or IP address of the host you want to trace the path to. Each hop of the trace will be returned in a Hop object.

The Resolve switch enables DNS resolution of each IP addresses received during the trace. If it is not set, only IP addresses are provided. When set, the cmdlet will attempt to resolve the names of the hosts in the route. This may considerably increase the time it takes to complete the trace.

The HopTimeout parameter determines the maximum amount of time to wait, in seconds, for a response in each hop of the trace. HopLimit specifies the maximum number of hops allowed for a trace.

The cmdlets support pipeline input for some of their parameters. Prebuilding an object and piping it to the cmdlet is very useful, but should be used with caution to prevent security conflicts. Steps have been taken to decrease the risk of a possibly accidental pipe to the cmdlet, for instance, the Credential parameter cannot be piped to the cmdlet and must be specified manually.

# trace a domain get-trace ncsu.edu # an example where hoplimit is necessary get-trace www.microsoft.com -hoplimit 15

Parameter List


The following is the full list of the parameters of the cmdlet with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.

LogFileThe location of a file to which debug information is written.
ConfigSpecifies one or more configuration settings.
HopLimitThe maximum number of hops to allow for a trace.
HopTimeoutThe timeout for each hop.
LocalIPThe IP address of the local interface to bind with.
LogFileThe location of a file to which debug information is written.
ResolveIndicates whether or not to resolve the host IP addresses to host names for each hop.
ServerThe address of the Server.
TimeoutThe maximum time allowed for the operation.

Output Objects


The following is the full list of the output objects returned by the cmdlet with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.

HopObject created for each hop in the trace to Server .

Config Settings


The following is a list of config settings for the cmdlet with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.

DelayHostResolutionWhether the hostname is resolved when RemoteHost is set.
HopTimeoutInMillisecondsThe hop timeout is treated as milliseconds.
TimeoutInMillisecondsThe timeout is treated as milliseconds.
DelayHostResolutionWhether the hostname is resolved when RemoteHost is set.
DontFragmentWhether the DontFragment control flag is set.
IcmpDllTimeoutThe timeout for the component when using the icmp.dll.
MaxMessageSizeThe maximum length of the messages that can be received.
MulticastTTLThe time to live (TTL) value for multicast ICMP packets sent by the component.
ReceiveAllModeEnables a socket to receive all IPv4 or IPv6 packets on the network.
TimeoutInMillisecondsThe timeout is treated as milliseconds.
UseConnectionDetermines whether to use a connected socket.
UseICMPDLLUse the icmp.dll included on Windows Systems.
UseIPHLPDLLUse the iphlpapi.dll included on Windows Systems.
UseIPv6Whether to use IPv6.
AbsoluteTimeoutDetermines whether timeouts are inactivity timeouts or absolute timeouts.
FirewallDataUsed to send extra data to the firewall.
InBufferSizeThe size in bytes of the incoming queue of the socket.
OutBufferSizeThe size in bytes of the outgoing queue of the socket.
BuildInfoInformation about the product's build.
CodePageThe system code page used for Unicode to Multibyte translations.
LicenseInfoInformation about the current license.
MaskSensitiveWhether sensitive data is masked in log messages.
UseInternalSecurityAPITells the component whether or not to use the system security libraries or an internal implementation.

LogFile Parameter (Get-Trace Cmdlet)

The location of a file to which debug information is written.

Syntax

Get-Trace -LogFile string

Remarks

When specified, the cmdlet will log debug information to the file. If the file exists, the information will be appended.

Default Value

null

Config Property (Get-Trace Cmdlet)

Specifies one or more configuration settings.

Syntax

Get-Trace -Config string[]

Remarks

The Config parameter takes one or more name-value pairs that represent the name of the configuration setting and value, i.e.: -config "Name=Value"

Default Value

null

HopLimit Property (Get-Trace Cmdlet)

The maximum number of hops to allow for a trace.

Syntax

Get-Trace -HopLimit int

Remarks

This is used to limit lengthy traces.

Default Value

0

HopTimeout Property (Get-Trace Cmdlet)

The timeout for each hop.

Syntax

Get-Trace -HopTimeout int

Remarks

The time value is in seconds. If 0, HopTimeout will be ignored.

Default Value

0

LocalIP Property (Get-Trace Cmdlet)

The IP address of the local interface to bind with.

Syntax

Get-Trace -LocalIP string

Remarks

The local IP address for the device through which to perform a trace.

Default Value

""

Parameter Alias

LocalAddress

LogFile Property (Get-Trace Cmdlet)

The location of a file to which debug information is written.

Syntax

Get-Trace -LogFile string

Remarks

When specified, the cmdlet will log debug information to the file. If the file exists, the information will be appended.

Default Value

""

Resolve Property (Get-Trace Cmdlet)

Indicates whether or not to resolve the host IP addresses to host names for each hop.

Syntax

Get-Trace -Resolve SwitchParameter

Remarks

Resolve determines whether the cmdlet resolves the name of host at each "hop" during the trace. The default value is "False". Note that the trace takes longer due to name resolution if Resolve is set to "True".

Default Value

false

Parameter Alias

ResolveHost

Server Property (Get-Trace Cmdlet)

The address of the Server.

Syntax

Get-Trace -Server string

Remarks

The cmdlet requires a server address to be provided. Either an IP address or the server host name can be provided.

Default Value

""

Parameter Position

0

This is a required parameter.

Timeout Property (Get-Trace Cmdlet)

The maximum time allowed for the operation.

Syntax

Get-Trace -Timeout int

Remarks

After the specified interval in seconds, the cmdlet will throw a Timeout error if the operation is not completed.

Default Value

10

Hop Output Object (Get-Trace Cmdlet)

Object created for each hop in the trace to Server .

Syntax

Object Hop {
   int Duration;
   int HopNumber;
   string Host;
}

Remarks

This object provides access to the information for each hop in the trace. The HopNumber denotes which hop the trace is at. The Host is the IP address of the host for the hop identified by HopNumber. Duration shows the amount of time taken by the hop.

Config Settings (Get-Trace Cmdlet)

The cmdlet accepts one or more of the following configuration settings. Configuration settings are similar in functionality to properties, but they are rarely used. In order to avoid "polluting" the property namespace of the cmdlet, access to these internal properties is provided through the Config method.

TraceRoute Config Settings

DelayHostResolution:   Whether the hostname is resolved when RemoteHost is set.

This setting specifies whether a hostname is resolved immediately when RemoteHost is set. If true the cmdlet will resolve the hostname and the IP address will be present in the RemoteHost property. If false, the hostname is not resolved until needed by the component when a method to connect or send data is called. If desired, ResolveRemoteHost may called to manually resolve the value in RemoteHost at any time.

The default value is false for the default library and true for the Async library. The default value is false.

HopTimeoutInMilliseconds:   The hop timeout is treated as milliseconds.

Setting HopTimeoutInMilliseconds to true causes the cmdlet to use the value in the HopTimeout property as milliseconds instead of seconds, which is the default.

TimeoutInMilliseconds:   The timeout is treated as milliseconds.

Setting TimeoutInMilliseconds to true causes the cmdlet to use the value in the Timeout property as milliseconds instead of seconds, which is the default.

ICMP Config Settings

DelayHostResolution:   Whether the hostname is resolved when RemoteHost is set.

This setting specifies whether a hostname is resolved immediately when RemoteHost is set. If true the cmdlet will resolve the hostname and the IP address will be present in the RemoteHost property. If false, the hostname is not resolved until needed by the component when a method to connect or send data is called. If desired, ResolveRemoteHost may called to manually resolve the value in RemoteHost at any time.

The default value is false for the default library and true for the Async library. The default value is false.

DontFragment:   Whether the DontFragment control flag is set.

When set to True, the DontFragment control flag in the IP header will be set.

The default value is False.

IcmpDllTimeout:   The timeout for the cmdlet when using the icmp.dll.

The cmdlet will wait for the operation to complete before returning control. If IcmpDllTimeout expires, and the operation is not yet complete, the cmdlet throws an exception. IcmpDllTimeout must be set to a positive value.

The default value for IcmpDllTimeout is 60 seconds.

Note: This configuration setting is valid only when UseICMPDLL is set to True.

MaxMessageSize:   The maximum length of the messages that can be received.

This setting specifies the maximum size of the datagrams that the cmdlet will accept without truncation.

MulticastTTL:   The time to live (TTL) value for multicast ICMP packets sent by the component.

When sending multicast packets, the setting specifies the time-to-live (TTL) field. The TTL field of the ICMP packet is a counter limiting the lifetime of a packet.

Each router (or other module) that handles a packet decrements the TTL field by one or more if it holds the packet for more than one second. Thus, the TTL is effectively a hop count limit on how far a datagram can propagate through the internet. When the TTL is reduced to zero (or less), the packet is discarded.

By default, the default TTL value of the underlying Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)/IP subsystem will be used.

ReceiveAllMode:   Enables a socket to receive all IPv4 or IPv6 packets on the network.

This setting specifies the ReceiveAll mode for the socket. The following modes are available:

ValueDescription
-1 (default)The socket option is left unspecified.
0Do not receive all network traffic.
1Receive all network traffic. This enables the promiscuous mode on the network interface card (NIC). On a LAN segment with a network hub, a NIC that supports the promiscuous mode will capture all IPv4 or IPv6 traffic on the LAN, including traffic between other computers on the same LAN segment.
2Receive only socket-level network traffic (this feature may not be implemented by your Windows installation).
3Receive only IP-level network traffic. This option does not enable the promiscuous mode on the NIC. This option affects packet processing only at the IP level. The NIC still receives only those packets directed to its configured unicast and multicast addresses. A socket with this option enabled, however, not only will receive packets directed to specific IP addresses, but also will receive all the IPv4 or IPv6 packets the NIC receives.
TimeoutInMilliseconds:   The timeout is treated as milliseconds.

Setting TimeoutInMilliseconds to True causes the cmdlet to use the value in the IcmpDllTimeout configuration setting as milliseconds instead of seconds, which is the default.

Note: This setting is valid only when UseICMPDLL is set to True.

UseConnection:   Determines whether to use a connected socket.

UseConnection specifies whether the cmdlet should use a connected socket or not. The connection is defined as an association in between the local address/port and the remote address/port. As such, this is not a connection in the traditional TCP sense. What it means is only that the cmdlet will send and receive data only to and from the specified destination.

The default value for this setting is False.

UseICMPDLL:   Use the icmp.dll included on Windows Systems.

Setting UseICMPDLL to True causes the cmdlet to use the icmp.dll on Windows 9x or on later machines. This sometimes enables access to raw sockets when permissions for standard operations are prohibited.

UseIPHLPDLL:   Use the iphlpapi.dll included on Windows Systems.

Setting UseIPHLPDLL to True causes the cmdlet to use the iphlpapi.dll on Windows XP or on later machines. This sometimes enables access to raw sockets when permissions for standard operations are prohibited.

Note: If both this and UseICMPDLL are enabled, the iphlpapi.dll will take precedence.

UseIPv6:   Whether to use IPv6.

When set to 0 (default), the cmdlet will use IPv4 exclusively. When set to 1, the cmdlet will use IPv6 exclusively. To instruct the cmdlet to prefer IPv6 addresses, but use IPv4 if IPv6 is not supported on the system, this setting should be set to 2. The default value is 0. Possible values are:

0 IPv4 Only
1 IPv6 Only
2 IPv6 with IPv4 fallback

Socket Config Settings

AbsoluteTimeout:   Determines whether timeouts are inactivity timeouts or absolute timeouts.

If AbsoluteTimeout is set to True, any method which does not complete within Timeout seconds will be aborted. By default, AbsoluteTimeout is False, and the timeout is an inactivity timeout.

Note: This option is not valid for UDP ports.

FirewallData:   Used to send extra data to the firewall.

When the firewall is a tunneling proxy, use this property to send custom (additional) headers to the firewall (e.g. headers for custom authentication schemes).

InBufferSize:   The size in bytes of the incoming queue of the socket.

This is the size of an internal queue in the TCP/IP stack. You can increase or decrease its size depending on the amount of data that you will be receiving. Increasing the value of the InBufferSize setting can provide significant improvements in performance in some cases.

Some TCP/IP implementations do not support variable buffer sizes. If that is the case, when the cmdlet is activated the InBufferSize reverts to its defined size. The same happens if you attempt to make it too large or too small.

OutBufferSize:   The size in bytes of the outgoing queue of the socket.

This is the size of an internal queue in the TCP/IP stack. You can increase or decrease its size depending on the amount of data that you will be sending. Increasing the value of the OutBufferSize setting can provide significant improvements in performance in some cases.

Some TCP/IP implementations do not support variable buffer sizes. If that is the case, when the cmdlet is activated the OutBufferSize reverts to its defined size. The same happens if you attempt to make it too large or too small.

Base Config Settings

BuildInfo:   Information about the product's build.

When queried, this setting will return a string containing information about the product's build.

CodePage:   The system code page used for Unicode to Multibyte translations.

The default code page is Unicode UTF-8 (65001).

The following is a list of valid code page identifiers:

IdentifierName
037IBM EBCDIC - U.S./Canada
437OEM - United States
500IBM EBCDIC - International
708Arabic - ASMO 708
709Arabic - ASMO 449+, BCON V4
710Arabic - Transparent Arabic
720Arabic - Transparent ASMO
737OEM - Greek (formerly 437G)
775OEM - Baltic
850OEM - Multilingual Latin I
852OEM - Latin II
855OEM - Cyrillic (primarily Russian)
857OEM - Turkish
858OEM - Multilingual Latin I + Euro symbol
860OEM - Portuguese
861OEM - Icelandic
862OEM - Hebrew
863OEM - Canadian-French
864OEM - Arabic
865OEM - Nordic
866OEM - Russian
869OEM - Modern Greek
870IBM EBCDIC - Multilingual/ROECE (Latin-2)
874ANSI/OEM - Thai (same as 28605, ISO 8859-15)
875IBM EBCDIC - Modern Greek
932ANSI/OEM - Japanese, Shift-JIS
936ANSI/OEM - Simplified Chinese (PRC, Singapore)
949ANSI/OEM - Korean (Unified Hangul Code)
950ANSI/OEM - Traditional Chinese (Taiwan; Hong Kong SAR, PRC)
1026IBM EBCDIC - Turkish (Latin-5)
1047IBM EBCDIC - Latin 1/Open System
1140IBM EBCDIC - U.S./Canada (037 + Euro symbol)
1141IBM EBCDIC - Germany (20273 + Euro symbol)
1142IBM EBCDIC - Denmark/Norway (20277 + Euro symbol)
1143IBM EBCDIC - Finland/Sweden (20278 + Euro symbol)
1144IBM EBCDIC - Italy (20280 + Euro symbol)
1145IBM EBCDIC - Latin America/Spain (20284 + Euro symbol)
1146IBM EBCDIC - United Kingdom (20285 + Euro symbol)
1147IBM EBCDIC - France (20297 + Euro symbol)
1148IBM EBCDIC - International (500 + Euro symbol)
1149IBM EBCDIC - Icelandic (20871 + Euro symbol)
1200Unicode UCS-2 Little-Endian (BMP of ISO 10646)
1201Unicode UCS-2 Big-Endian
1250ANSI - Central European
1251ANSI - Cyrillic
1252ANSI - Latin I
1253ANSI - Greek
1254ANSI - Turkish
1255ANSI - Hebrew
1256ANSI - Arabic
1257ANSI - Baltic
1258ANSI/OEM - Vietnamese
1361Korean (Johab)
10000MAC - Roman
10001MAC - Japanese
10002MAC - Traditional Chinese (Big5)
10003MAC - Korean
10004MAC - Arabic
10005MAC - Hebrew
10006MAC - Greek I
10007MAC - Cyrillic
10008MAC - Simplified Chinese (GB 2312)
10010MAC - Romania
10017MAC - Ukraine
10021MAC - Thai
10029MAC - Latin II
10079MAC - Icelandic
10081MAC - Turkish
10082MAC - Croatia
12000Unicode UCS-4 Little-Endian
12001Unicode UCS-4 Big-Endian
20000CNS - Taiwan
20001TCA - Taiwan
20002Eten - Taiwan
20003IBM5550 - Taiwan
20004TeleText - Taiwan
20005Wang - Taiwan
20105IA5 IRV International Alphabet No. 5 (7-bit)
20106IA5 German (7-bit)
20107IA5 Swedish (7-bit)
20108IA5 Norwegian (7-bit)
20127US-ASCII (7-bit)
20261T.61
20269ISO 6937 Non-Spacing Accent
20273IBM EBCDIC - Germany
20277IBM EBCDIC - Denmark/Norway
20278IBM EBCDIC - Finland/Sweden
20280IBM EBCDIC - Italy
20284IBM EBCDIC - Latin America/Spain
20285IBM EBCDIC - United Kingdom
20290IBM EBCDIC - Japanese Katakana Extended
20297IBM EBCDIC - France
20420IBM EBCDIC - Arabic
20423IBM EBCDIC - Greek
20424IBM EBCDIC - Hebrew
20833IBM EBCDIC - Korean Extended
20838IBM EBCDIC - Thai
20866Russian - KOI8-R
20871IBM EBCDIC - Icelandic
20880IBM EBCDIC - Cyrillic (Russian)
20905IBM EBCDIC - Turkish
20924IBM EBCDIC - Latin-1/Open System (1047 + Euro symbol)
20932JIS X 0208-1990 & 0121-1990
20936Simplified Chinese (GB2312)
21025IBM EBCDIC - Cyrillic (Serbian, Bulgarian)
21027Extended Alpha Lowercase
21866Ukrainian (KOI8-U)
28591ISO 8859-1 Latin I
28592ISO 8859-2 Central Europe
28593ISO 8859-3 Latin 3
28594ISO 8859-4 Baltic
28595ISO 8859-5 Cyrillic
28596ISO 8859-6 Arabic
28597ISO 8859-7 Greek
28598ISO 8859-8 Hebrew
28599ISO 8859-9 Latin 5
28605ISO 8859-15 Latin 9
29001Europa 3
38598ISO 8859-8 Hebrew
50220ISO 2022 Japanese with no halfwidth Katakana
50221ISO 2022 Japanese with halfwidth Katakana
50222ISO 2022 Japanese JIS X 0201-1989
50225ISO 2022 Korean
50227ISO 2022 Simplified Chinese
50229ISO 2022 Traditional Chinese
50930Japanese (Katakana) Extended
50931US/Canada and Japanese
50933Korean Extended and Korean
50935Simplified Chinese Extended and Simplified Chinese
50936Simplified Chinese
50937US/Canada and Traditional Chinese
50939Japanese (Latin) Extended and Japanese
51932EUC - Japanese
51936EUC - Simplified Chinese
51949EUC - Korean
51950EUC - Traditional Chinese
52936HZ-GB2312 Simplified Chinese
54936Windows XP: GB18030 Simplified Chinese (4 Byte)
57002ISCII Devanagari
57003ISCII Bengali
57004ISCII Tamil
57005ISCII Telugu
57006ISCII Assamese
57007ISCII Oriya
57008ISCII Kannada
57009ISCII Malayalam
57010ISCII Gujarati
57011ISCII Punjabi
65000Unicode UTF-7
65001Unicode UTF-8
The following is a list of valid code page identifiers for Mac OS only:
IdentifierName
1ASCII
2NEXTSTEP
3JapaneseEUC
4UTF8
5ISOLatin1
6Symbol
7NonLossyASCII
8ShiftJIS
9ISOLatin2
10Unicode
11WindowsCP1251
12WindowsCP1252
13WindowsCP1253
14WindowsCP1254
15WindowsCP1250
21ISO2022JP
30MacOSRoman
10UTF16String
0x90000100UTF16BigEndian
0x94000100UTF16LittleEndian
0x8c000100UTF32String
0x98000100UTF32BigEndian
0x9c000100UTF32LittleEndian
65536Proprietary

LicenseInfo:   Information about the current license.

When queried, this setting will return a string containing information about the license this instance of a cmdlet is using. It will return the following information:

  • Product: The product the license is for.
  • Product Key: The key the license was generated from.
  • License Source: Where the license was found (e.g., RuntimeLicense, License File).
  • License Type: The type of license installed (e.g., Royalty Free, Single Server).
  • Last Valid Build: The last valid build number for which the license will work.
MaskSensitive:   Whether sensitive data is masked in log messages.

In certain circumstances it may be beneficial to mask sensitive data, like passwords, in log messages. Set this to true to mask sensitive data. The default is true.

This setting only works on these cmdlets: AS3Receiver, AS3Sender, Atom, Client(3DS), FTP, FTPServer, IMAP, OFTPClient, SSHClient, SCP, Server(3DS), Sexec, SFTP, SFTPServer, SSHServer, TCPClient, TCPServer.

UseInternalSecurityAPI:   Whether or not to use the system security libraries or an internal implementation.

When set to false, the cmdlet will use the system security libraries by default to perform cryptographic functions where applicable. In this case, calls to unmanaged code will be made. In certain environments, this is not desirable. To use a completely managed security implementation, set this setting to true.

Setting this configuration setting to true tells the cmdlet to use the internal implementation instead of using the system security libraries.

On Windows, this setting is set to false by default. On Linux/macOS, this setting is set to true by default.

If using the .NET Standard Library, this setting will be true on all platforms. The .NET Standard library does not support using the system security libraries.

Note: This setting is static. The value set is applicable to all cmdlets used in the application.

When this value is set, the product's system dynamic link library (DLL) is no longer required as a reference, as all unmanaged code is stored in that file.