traceroute many hops with the same ip

Question

I'm a software developer that sometimes has to do some easy network tasks but knows almost nothing about it.

I'm having some problems with a vps I rent ( ENJOY VPS: Unmanaged VPS - Medium VPS) and they insist that their server is running ok, but I keep having this problem, My server keeps getting down everyday, It's less than 15 minutes, but it's everyday (sometime twice a day) and I think that's not acceptable.

Well. here is my traceroute:

My question is almost all the hops goes to the same ip, that is my provider ip (but not my server ip) ¿is that ok? I config my own DNS server (bind9) might that be the problem? When my server is down ping doesn't respond either and I can't access either via ENJOY VPS console. (it doesn't let me stop or restart the server) (so, basically I can do nothing)

traceroute to 74.117.153.110 (..HIDDEN..), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  dsldevice (192.168.1.254)  1.759 ms  1.281 ms  1.627 ms
 2  dsl-servicio-l200.uninet.net.mx (200.38.193.226)  18.611 ms  17.414 ms  26.365 ms
 3  bb-dallas-stemmons-5-pos0-14-0-0.uninet.net.mx (201.125.50.122)  60.559 ms  63.272 ms  72.120 ms
 4  xe-0-3-0-1.r01.dllstx04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (157.238.225.45)  81.813 ms  81.872 ms  80.888 ms
 5  ae-9.r07.dllstx09.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.2.208)  83.735 ms  84.919 ms  89.175 ms
 6  xe-0-0-0-15.r07.dllstx09.us.ce.gin.ntt.net (129.250.195.118)  80.686 ms  81.170 ms  84.883 ms
 7  cust-108-60-193-226.corexchange.com (108.60.193.226)  94.542 ms  86.652 ms  85.616 ms
 8  74.117.154.4 (74.117.154.4)  82.222 ms  81.909 ms  80.970 ms
 9  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  83.212 ms  83.725 ms  81.852 ms
10  74.117.154.4 (74.117.154.4)  97.692 ms  81.136 ms *
11  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  83.025 ms  82.698 ms  88.137 ms
12  * * *
13  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  82.197 ms  83.792 ms  83.093 ms
14  * * *
15  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  83.534 ms  130.318 ms  83.675 ms
16  * * *
17  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  84.012 ms  84.844 ms  102.515 ms
18  * * *
19  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  83.032 ms  94.277 ms  86.625 ms
20  * * *
21  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  240.106 ms  119.049 ms  82.273 ms
22  * * *
23  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  84.167 ms  82.956 ms  84.310 ms
24  * * *
25  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  83.955 ms  83.636 ms  83.214 ms
26  * * 74.117.154.4 (74.117.154.4)  83.097 ms
27  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  83.860 ms  111.847 ms  86.387 ms
28  * * *
29  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  83.518 ms  83.944 ms  86.903 ms
30  * * *
31  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  271.557 ms  83.194 ms  103.277 ms
32  * * *
33  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  85.195 ms  83.311 ms  83.589 ms
34  * * *
35  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  87.368 ms  100.705 ms  84.437 ms
36  * * *
37  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  91.463 ms  120.895 ms  84.287 ms
38  74.117.154.4 (74.117.154.4)  82.238 ms *  82.750 ms
39  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  83.506 ms  83.911 ms  83.995 ms
40  * * *
41  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  84.081 ms  85.222 ms  84.120 ms
42  * * *
43  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  84.200 ms  84.603 ms  98.450 ms
44  * * *
45  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  85.244 ms  84.741 ms  103.672 ms
46  * * *
47  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  83.717 ms  84.648 ms  87.149 ms
48  * * *
49  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  88.051 ms  86.047 ms  84.800 ms
50  * * *
51  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  201.409 ms  170.421 ms  146.111 ms
52  * * *
53  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  84.987 ms  84.247 ms  87.167 ms
54  * * *
55  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  111.967 ms  133.665 ms  88.217 ms
56  74.117.154.4 (74.117.154.4)  109.692 ms *  83.531 ms
57  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  85.115 ms  86.417 ms  85.426 ms
58  * * *
59  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  84.038 ms  85.114 ms  122.035 ms
60  * * *
61  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  125.063 ms  84.423 ms  84.824 ms
62  74.117.154.4 (74.117.154.4)  82.987 ms *  133.977 ms
63  74.117.154.1 (74.117.154.1)  159.238 ms  163.869 ms  164.372 ms
64  * * *

Answer 1

That is a routing loop. The router with IP address 74.117.154.1 keeps sending your packets to another router (74.117.154.4), which keeps sending them back to 74.117.154.1. They keep doing this until the TTL of the packet reaches zero, and the packet is discarded.

This cannot be caused by your bind9 setup, something is wrong with the configuration of the routers.

You should contact the people running that network. If you are sure that is in the VPS provider's network, contact them. You can also do an IP whois lookup to see to whom the IP address is assigned.

Answer 2

It looks like a routing loop, combined with an ICMP rate limit (74.117.154.4 appears in the pattern at first and then is mostly replaced by timeouts).

From looking up the ip's in whois the problem IPs are in the same allocation block as the destination, so it's almost certainly in your provider's network.

What I suspect is happening is that one of the routers (possibly the host box for your VM if your host does IP routing on the host boxes) along the path to your server in the hosting providers network is losing it's route towards your server. With no better routes it matches the packet to a default or summary route and sends the packet back upstream. The upstream router in turn sends it back downstream.

If your provider can't/won't fix this it's time to start looking for a better one.