[vox-tech] Why I'll Never Be a Network Admin Guy

[Harry S]

On Tue, Oct 22, 2002 at 12:35:38PM -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Richard Crawford (rscrawford@mossroot.com):
> 
> > So what does "Time to live exceeded" mean?
> 
> It means that the ICMP packets (comprising the ping attempt) were taking
> too long to reach the destination, such that they exceeded their allowed
> lifetime before getting there.

The above answer is incorrect.

When I first started learning about TCP/IP I took answers like the above
as correct. The answer above certainly sounds right, but it isn't. 
If you take it literally your understanding of TCP/IP ICMP packets will
be as warped as my early understanding of TCP/IP.

Several people gave correct answers. I would also suggest checking some
of the links provided to learn a bit more about ICMP packets (used with
Ping and Traceroute).

NOTE:
Earlier today (10/22/02) I experienced problems with my pacbell DSL
connection. In particular, I received "Time to live exceeded" messages
too. Things cleared up sometime in the afternoon.