Start With A Question
These responsive workflow illustrations explain RouteGlass without exposing router management details. They are educational diagrams, not screenshots or measurements from a live network. Expand the examples below to see how to interpret common outcomes.
- 01Choose A Location
Read the operator and POP information. A test starts from this looking glass location, not from your own laptop.
- 02Choose A Diagnostic
Use Ping for reachability, Traceroute for a path, MTR for repeated hop observations, or BGP for routing information when enabled.
- 03Enter Your Target
Use a valid destination supported by the selected test. Confirm the address and IP family before running it.
- 04Read The Result
Look at the destination result and the pattern across hops. Compare another test before drawing a conclusion.
Choose The Right Test
Use replies and round-trip time to assess ICMP reachability from this POP.
Inspect responding hops toward the destination. Some routers do not reply to probes.
Compare repeated loss and latency observations across hops and the destination.
Inspect available routing information from the configured router backend. This does not measure application performance.
The documented RouteGlass edition supports optional BGP through one configured backend per instance. A deployment can provide other diagnostics without enabling BGP.
Understand Ping Results
Example: Replies Arrive With Varying Latency
Several replies indicate ICMP reachability at that moment. Varying round-trip times may reflect load, path changes or normal network variation.
Compare several observations and application behaviour. A Ping reply does not prove that a website, VPN or other service is healthy.
Example: No Replies Arrive
The destination may be unreachable, or probes may be filtered or rate-limited.
Check the target and IP family, then compare Traceroute or MTR. Do not treat a timeout alone as proof of an outage.
Read Traceroute And MTR
Replies→Hop 2
No Reply→Destination
Replies
A silent intermediate hop can still forward traffic. Destination replies matter when interpreting this pattern.
What If Loss Continues To The Destination?
Persistent loss beginning at one point and continuing through later hops deserves investigation. Compare repeated observations and another vantage point. ICMP treatment and return paths can complicate the result; the first affected hop alone does not identify the responsible device.
What Does An Asterisk Mean?
A probe did not receive a response within its time limit. It does not automatically mean traffic stopped at that hop.
Understand Optional BGP Lookup
- 01Select BGP
The deployment must have BGP enabled and a working router backend.
- 02Query A Destination
The backend looks for applicable routing information for the requested destination.
- 03Review The Route
Where supplied, inspect the covering prefix and routing attributes. A control-plane route is different from proof of end-to-end connectivity.
If BGP is unavailable, visitors should try again later or contact the operator. Administrators should inspect private service logs and the applicable MikroTik, Juniper or VyOS guide. Do not expose management errors or credentials in public results.
Public IP And Test Downloads
When enabled, visitor IP information describes the address visible to the web service. NAT, VPNs or proxies may make it different from your device address. Optional test-file downloads measure a different journey: the transfer between the test server and your browser.
- 01Choose A Test File
Select a size appropriate for your connection and data allowance.
- 02Observe The Transfer
Consider both the server location and your own access connection.
- 03Compare Carefully
One download does not establish total network capacity or guaranteed throughput.
If A Test Cannot Run
| What You See | What To Do |
|---|---|
| Invalid target | Check the destination format and supported address family. |
| Rate limit / HTTP 429 | Wait before retrying. Avoid repeated submissions. |
| BGP unavailable | Check whether BGP is enabled; administrators can review private backend logs. |
| Application unavailable / HTTP 502 | The operator should check the service and reverse proxy. |
Continue with Troubleshooting RouteGlass or Installing RouteGlass.