Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to communication networks, and more specifically, to preservation of a time-to-live (TTL) parameter in a network element. 
Description of the Related Art
A communication network may include network elements that route packets through the network.  Some network elements may include a distributed architecture, wherein packet processing may be distributed among several subsystems of the network element (e.g., line cards).  Thus, network elements may be modular and may include various sub-systems and/or sub-elements, which may include a shelf, a slot, a port, a channel and/or various combinations thereof. 
Network elements may use multiple IP stacks in a distributed architecture system and the IP stacks may operate independently.  The use of multiple IP stacks may result in certain errors or undesired behavior when tracing packets, such as with a trace route application, where duplicated responses or an incorrect count of a number of hops by a packet may be observed.  Such errors may occur because a packet's time-to-live parameter (TTL), which is an internal packet parameter, may become decremented more than once on a single system, which may not correspond to an expected modification of TTL. 
Also, an IP stack in a distributed architecture system, such as a network element, may use private or other internal IP addresses to communicate among distributed entities within the system.  The internal IP addresses may generally be prevented from being visible from outside the distributed architecture system at the network element.  In certain instances, applications such as the trace route application may expose the internal IP addresses externally to the network elements.