Hi there

I've noticed that when running an mtr (my traceroute) that sometimes some of the hops would light up. It will flash for about half a second then return back to its normal colour.

I've search the net, but have not yet found an explanation as to what it means. Man pages also no help.

Any ideas?

Just for some more clarity...

When running a mtr your results looks more or less as follows:

My traceroute [v0.75]
host.name.something (0.0.0.0) Tue Dec 14 16:59:45 2010
Keys: Help Display mode Restart statistics Order of fields quit
Packets Pings
Host Loss% Snt Last Avg Best Wrst StDev
1. 10.10.10.10 0.0% 4557 0.1 0.1 0.1 92.9 2.7
2. 20.20.20.20 0.0% 4557 0.2 0.2 0.2 1.8 0.1
3. 30.30.30.30 0.0% 4557 0.9 0.9 0.6 51.3 4.1
4. 40.40.40.40 0.1% 4557 0.9 1.0 0.8 36.3 3.7
5. 50.50.50.50 0.0% 4557 1.1 1.1 0.9 37.2 4.0
6. 60.60.60.60 0.2% 4557 1.8 2.0 1.4 61.6 4.7


My terminal settings default to a black background with light-grey texting (yours may be different).

For some reason during the mtr, some of the hops (either 1, or 2, or 3, etc.) will appear highlighted for about half a second (the text will turn from light-grey to white). This is not a terminal appearence setting but relates to a operation of mtr which serves some kind of purpose, an indicator of something.

I'd like to know what this "highlighting" of results mean. For what purpose or reason does mtr highlight some of its hops. There seems to be little or no mention of this on the net that I can find.