Ping and Traceroute. Conflicting Stats!!

Hi Guys,

I am having problemsin understanding this concept. Please Help me through.
when i ping a Host, i will get a TTL value of 235. This effectively means the host is behind 20 Hops as TTL is decremented at each Hop. However, when i traceroute, i am getting 30 Hops, which is strange.

Pinging 202.147.191.175 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 202.147.191.175: bytes=32 time=643ms TTL=235
Reply from 202.147.191.175: bytes=32 time=645ms TTL=235
Reply from 202.147.191.175: bytes=32 time=648ms TTL=235
Reply from 202.147.191.175: bytes=32 time=644ms TTL=235

Ping statistics for 202.147.191.175:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 643ms, Maximum = 648ms, Average = 645ms



C:\>tracert -d 202.147.191.175

Tracing route to 202.147.191.175 over a maximum

1 * * * Request timed o
2 * * * Request timed o
3 19 ms 19 ms 19 ms 218.248.253.81
4 21 ms 20 ms 19 ms 218.248.249.2
5 20 ms 19 ms 20 ms 218.248.255.5
6 18 ms 19 ms 19 ms 218.248.255.6
7 1282 ms 1259 ms 1246 ms 203.200.145.202
8 1504 ms 1490 ms 1481 ms 202.54.2.110
9 1487 ms 1481 ms 1499 ms 206.24.241.9
10 1539 ms 1506 ms 1500 ms 206.24.211.73
11 1487 ms 1516 ms 1533 ms 204.70.192.150
12 1506 ms 1524 ms 1494 ms 204.70.192.89
13 1507 ms 1509 ms 1519 ms 204.70.192.118
14 1536 ms 1518 ms 1525 ms 204.70.192.85
15 1523 ms 1489 ms 1475 ms 204.70.192.81
16 1467 ms 1479 ms 1566 ms 204.70.192.54
17 1526 ms 1557 ms 1542 ms 204.70.192.34
18 1575 ms 1615 ms 1576 ms 204.70.192.2
19 1657 ms 1653 ms 1565 ms 204.70.192.209
20 1694 ms 1664 ms 1677 ms 204.70.144.122
21 1647 ms 1793 ms 1652 ms 166.49.164.113
22 1669 ms 1677 ms 1673 ms 166.49.164.210
23 1674 ms 1687 ms 1715 ms 166.49.164.210
24 1736 ms 1720 ms 1733 ms 166.49.195.126
25 588 ms 1704 ms 588 ms 166.49.209.6
26 588 ms 585 ms 586 ms 202.125.128.161
27 594 ms 588 ms 587 ms 202.125.129.206
28 594 ms 599 ms 611 ms 10.0.255.1
29 594 ms 602 ms 598 ms 10.0.255.1
30 591 ms 638 ms 607 ms 10.0.0.41

Trace complete.

Why is this conflict ? is the packets taking different routes for pinfg and tracert ? I am using WINXP. But the same result was seen in Linux traceroute program.

Thanks in advance
regards

Maybe this will answer your question. No garanties! I found it in some HP documentation.

"The TTL value of an IP packet represents the maximum number of IP routers that the packet can go through before being thrown away. You can expect each router in the Internet to decrement the TTL field by exactly one.

The maximum possible value of this field is 255, and most UNIX compatible systems set the TTL field of ICMP ECHO_REQUEST packets to 255. This is why you can use the ping command on some hosts but not reach them with TELNET or FTP .

In normal operation, ping displays the TTL value from the packet it receives. When a remote system receives a ping packet, it can do one of three things with the TTL field in response:

Not change the field. In this case, the TTL value in the received packet will be 255 minus the number of routers in the round-trip path.
Set the field to 255. In this case, the TTL value in the received packet will be 255 minus the number of routers in the path from the remote system to the host that received the ping commands.
Set the field to some other value. Some machines use the same value for ICMP packets that they use for TCP packets; for example, either 30 or 60. Others may use completely wild values. "

Hello there,
TTL is Time to live which is equal to 235 as per your settings and it shows the time after which packet dies out if it does not reach any specific location.I am not sure about my answer(Grin);plz update if u have nay thing to add.

Your Buddy,
balli