Trace-Path

Tool Name: network/trace-path

Traces the network path to a host (equivalent to traceroute). Useful for debugging routing issues, identifying where packets are dropped, or measuring network latency across hops. Hint: Use network/ping for basic reachability before tracing the path.

Example

Every example below shows the equivalent linuxctl command and the raw MCP JSON-RPC call it resolves to. The raw call always follows the same two-step pattern (see MCP API overview for the full explanation): open an SSE stream to get a one-time POST endpoint, then POST the JSON-RPC request there - the result streams back on the SSE connection.

linuxctl

linuxctl get network trace-path 1.1.1.1 --max_hops 5

Output (Ubuntu 24.04 VPS):

traceroute to 1.1.1.1 (1.1.1.1), 5 hops max, 60 byte packets
2.57.243.2 (2.57.243.2)  0.772 ms  0.620 ms  0.588 ms
212.237.216.242 (212.237.216.242)  5.186 ms  5.178 ms  5.203 ms
162.158.236.14 (162.158.236.14)  18.799 ms  18.785 ms  18.806 ms
162.158.236.11 (162.158.236.11)  1.470 ms  1.486 ms  1.482 ms
one.one.one.one (1.1.1.1)  1.012 ms  1.072 ms  1.017 ms

curl (raw MCP JSON-RPC)

# 1. Open the SSE stream (in the background) and capture the one-time POST endpoint
curl -N -s --cacert mcpd.crt -H "Authorization: Bearer $MCP_TOKEN" https://localhost:9091/sse &
# server sends: event: endpoint / data: /message?session_id=...

# 2. POST the tools/call request to that endpoint
curl -s --cacert mcpd.crt -X POST "https://localhost:9091/message?session_id=<from step 1>" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $MCP_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc": "2.0", "id": "1", "method": "tools/call", "params": {"name": "network/trace-path", "arguments": {"host": "1.1.1.1", "max_hops": 5}}}'

# 3. The result arrives on the SSE stream opened in step 1

Response:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": "1",
  "result": {
    "content": [
      {
        "type": "text",
        "text": "traceroute to 1.1.1.1 (1.1.1.1), 5 hops max, 60 byte packets\n 1  2.57.243.2 (2.57.243.2)  1.526 ms  1.472 ms  1.481 ms\n 2  212.237.216.242 (212.237.216.242)  0.664 ms  0.634 ms  0.644 ms\n 3  162.158.236.14 (162.158.236.14)  1.410 ms  1.423 ms  1.439 ms\n 4  162.158.236.11 (162.158.236.11)  1.883 ms  1.902 ms 162.158.236.13 (162.158.236.13)  12.654 ms\n 5  one.one.one.one (1.1.1.1)  1.130 ms  1.106 ms  1.085 ms\n"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Example​

Example