What is the primary purpose of the mtr command?

The mtr command, short for "My Traceroute," primarily serves the function of continuously displaying travel times and packet loss between the source and destination hosts. Unlike traditional ping or traceroute commands, which provide separate outputs, mtr combines the functionalities of both. It sends packets to the target and then displays real-time statistics about the route taken and the performance of each hop along the way, allowing users to see how latency and packet loss vary across the journey to the destination.

This continuous monitoring capability makes it particularly useful for diagnosing network issues, as it allows users to observe how connectivity and performance can fluctuate over time rather than presenting a snapshot that might miss intermittent problems.