Internet Topology:Discovery and Policy Impact, Part I

Abstract We cannot begin to understand the large-scale structure of the Internet without having accurate representations of the Internet topology. Mercator is a program that uses hop-limited probes-the same primitive used in traceroute-to infer an Internet map. It uses informed random address probing to carefully explore the Internet Protocol (IP) address space when determining router adjacencies, it uses source-route capable routers wherever possible to enhance the fidelity of the resulting map, and it employs novel mechanisms for resolving aliases (interfaces be longing to the same router).