A fast, dependency-free traceroute implementation in pure C
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HN · launched Oct 31, 2025 · 29 upvotes (top 21%) · 0 views
Niche: network monitoring and diagnostics tools · 193 launches, 12 in the last 7 days ▼ -33% · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Horizontal
- Dev tools
- Developer
- Not AI
- Hobby / open-source project
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 193 launches in network monitoring and diagnostics tools →
Could you build this?
No Writing a zero-dependency traceroute in pure C requires low-level systems programming, POSIX raw socket manipulations (SOCK_RAW), manually crafting IP/ICMP/UDP packet headers, and managing raw network privileges and kernel interfaces.
What it would actually take: The core implementation relies on pure C utilizing raw sockets (`socket(AF_INET, SOCK_RAW, IPPROTO_ICMP)` or UDP variants) and manual manipulation of the IP Time-To-Live (`IP_TTL`) socket options via `setsockopt`. It requires crafting and parsing raw packet byte streams (IP and ICMP echo/time-exceeded headers), computing Internet checksums, and handling low-level OS networking differences across Linux, BSD, and macOS. Deep systems networking and POSIX C expertise are strictly required.
Discussion
20 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: traceroute, mtr, valgrind, sanitizers
Concerns raised: Requires root privileges to run, Appears to be AI-generated code, High false positive rate from clang-tidy linter, Memory safety issues in C language choice, Code not written/understood by author
Feature requests: Disable overzealous clang-tidy warnings by default, Support for non-root operation like traceroute/mtr
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 2472 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #480 of 2473 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 2 days after the earliest competitor.
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- Prismag · hn · 2026-06-22 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.63
- Knitting · hn · 2026-10-13 · 12 upvotes · similarity 0.59
- nocturne · github · 2026-10-19 · 25 upvotes · similarity 0.59
- HybridCachePlus · github · 2026-09-11 · 9 upvotes · similarity 0.59
- c-hd-proof · github · 2026-09-21 · 44 upvotes · similarity 0.59
- Flint · hn · 2026-08-29 · 13 upvotes · similarity 0.58
- Neptune, a free and open-source terminal built in Rust · hn · 2026-10-07 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.58
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