Ping
The Ping command will test the quality and latency of your connection. If it shows 4 round-trip reports without a reply (does not say not found, timed out, etc.) your connection is healthy. To use this, type ping gw1.ibllc.com at the command prompt. A healthy ping should look as follows:
Pinging gw1.ibllc.com [208.245.107.3] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 208.245.107.3: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=254
Reply from 208.245.107.3: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=254
Reply from 208.245.107.3: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=254
Reply from 208.245.107.3: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=254
If the ping results show excessive latency (>500ms), timeouts/packet loss, or no replies, a network problem exists between you and the IB network.
Trace Route
The tracert command is used to isolate routing issues. This will show you all of the âhopsâ from your connection to our network. A timeout, indicated by â*â or time above 200, indicates a slow or dead hop and may be a problem. Over 15 hops can also be a problem.
To look at a traceroute, type tracert gw1.ibllc.com at the command prompt.
The following are sample traceroutes. Included is an explanation and suggested course of action. This traceroute is an example of a healthy connection. The ping times and the number of hops are low (lower is better). No course of action required.
1 gatekeeper (206.42.160.1) 1 ms 1 ms 2 ms
2 jfk-edge-19.inet.qwest.net (63.237.128.53) 19 ms 26 ms 21 ms
3 jfk-core-03.inet.qwest.net (205.171.30.189) 22 ms 19 ms 24 ms
4 ewr-core-03.inet.qwest.net (205.171.5.89) 20 ms 19 ms 20 ms
5 ewr-brdr-01.inet.qwest.net (205.171.17.98) 20 ms 26 ms 19 ms
6 205.171.1.122 (205.171.1.122) 30 ms 20 ms 22 ms
7 sl-bb23-nyc-3-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.7.109) 20 ms 19 ms 19 ms
8 sl-bb22-pen-6-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.9.18) 25 ms 37 ms 21 ms
9 sl-bb26-pen-9-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.16.58) 21 ms 26 ms 22 ms
10 sl-gw26-pen-4-0-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.5.190) 24 ms 23 ms 24 ms
11 sl-thllc-4-0-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.190.222) 35 ms 31 ms 29 ms
12 206.106.137.111 (206.106.137.111) 28 ms 28 ms 30 ms
http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/general/education/faqs/technical.php?ib_entity=llc
go down to about the end of the page... look for the Ping heading.