How to perform an MTR test on a Mac

MTR is similar to a traceroute test that tests the network connections/path between your physical location and your server here on our network. If you run Windows there is software called WinMTR that you can download online to perform a WinMTR test.  This guide is for users on a Mac computer.

If you are a Mac you may already have MTR installed. If not however, you will first need to install the MTR binary so you can run the mtr test from your Mac machine.

MTR is run from your Mac terminal.  This is found under ‘Utilities’ on your Mac. To run MTR, simply type mtr followed by your server name, domain or IP address. For example, if your web site name was ‘domain.com’, you would type:

mtr domain.com

If mtr is installed it will start to test your connection.  Let it run about 30 seconds, stop the test (CTRL-Z) and send us the test results along with your local IP address(which you can view by going to the web site http://cmyip.com)

If mtr is not already installed you’ll get an error and need to install mtr first:

Dodwnload the latest version of MTR from the link below (download the .tar.gz file):
ftp://ftp.bitwizard.nl/mtr/

Double-click on the file in Finder. Open Terminal (under Utilities) and type the following in your terminal session:

(be sure to adjust file or folder names from the example below to match your specific environment). If the file is in your ~Downloads folder for example the procedure is as follows:

cd Downloads

cd mtr-0.81

export LIBS=’-lm -ltermcap -lresolv’

./configure

make

sudo make install

alias mtr=/usr/local/sbin/mtr

To permanently save the alias, run this:

open ~/.bash_profile

add to the .bash_profile:

alias mtr=/usr/local/sbin/mtr

You should now be able to run the mtr test as described above.