more of a overall WWW network question

[bobbybobbertson]

I don't get it. I thought the internet was supposed to be this wonderful intertwined web, such that if one link goes down, you can still connect to a different server across the country through other paths.

However there are times, when I cannot connet to a server of mine that is out in Texas (I am in wisconsin). If I ssh over to a friends server that is in Minesota, and then ssh into the Texas server, I can get in. This means a path does exist from my computer to the computer in Texas. Yet, my computer will not find that route. It just keeps going the same way and getting stuck at that same place.

Any ideas of what is going on? Or is this just the way things work?



Output from a traceroute shows that the connection is getting stuck at some link that is probably down. I can run traceroute many times, and it always gets stuck at the same place. Why isn't the internet smart enough to re-route my request around this dead link.



1 192.168.0.17 (192.168.0.17) 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms
2 10.51.32.1 (10.51.32.1) 10 ms 8 ms 14 ms
3 24.160.224.81 (24.160.224.81) 12 ms 11 ms 9 ms
4 milwwirtco-rtr1-srp-1-0.wi.rr.com (24.160.225.1) 11 ms 12 ms 12 ms
5 pop2-chi-P3-0.atdn.net (66.185.136.113) 13 ms 17 ms 15 ms
6 bb2-chi-P0-1.atdn.net (66.185.148.66) 13 ms 31 ms 14 ms
7 bb2-vie-P10-0.atdn.net (66.185.152.215) 51 ms 36 ms 34 ms
8 bb2-ash-P15-2.atdn.net (66.185.152.20) 33 ms 35 ms 34 ms
9 pop2-ash-P1-0.atdn.net (66.185.139.214) 34 ms 34 ms 34 ms
10 WilliamsCommunications.atdn.net (66.185.141.250) 34 ms 34 ms 34 ms
11 hrndva1wcx3-oc48.wcg.net (64.200.95.117) 33 ms 34 ms 34 ms
12 64.200.232.125 (64.200.232.125) 86 ms 82 ms 82 ms
13 dllstx1wcx1-intcomm-pos.wcg.net (64.200.111.178) 83 ms 82 ms 81 ms
14 * * *
15 * * *
16

[heckle]

Wether the route gets updated or not is up to the individual routers/proxies/firewalls that the packets pass through. With the size of the internet, if a link is broken, it could take some time fo rit to be "rerouted".