MTR is a powerful tool that enables administrators to diagnose and isolate networking errors and provide reports of network status to upstream providers. MTR represents an evolution of the traceroute command by providing a greater data sample as if augmenting traceroute with ping output. This document provides an in-depth overview of MTR, the data it generates, and how to interpret and draw conclusions based on the data provided by it.

For a basic overview of network diagnostic techniques, see our introduction to network diagnostics. If you are having general issues with your system, read our overview of general system diagnostics.