Topic: bandwidth speed test from server to client

[mike wainscott]

I'd like to set up a speedtest where client machines could access the server to determine what their network access speed to the server is.  Ideally, I'd like to set it up as a web page on the server that is only available to the client machines and not the internet.  This would be helpful in measuring my wireless client speed.

Thanks,
Mike

[Nathan Fowler]

Hit it with a 1024 byte packet using PING.

Win32:
ping -l 2500 [IP]

Linux:
ping -s 1024 [IP]

[Nathan Fowler]

Note, if you wanted to be a little more flashy, you could create a PHP script that would ping the REMOTE_ADDR server variable passed through HTTP and then parse that, and generate your speed results.

IE:

Ping > 1024 MS = Bad connection
Ping > 500 MS and Ping < 1024 MS = "Dialup"

Etc.

[mike wainscott]

Thanks for the input Nathan.  I was actually hoping for something 'canned' that
someone had built that ran a more extensive process from the server to the
client and vice-verse so as to display a web page with a nice graphic
indicating upload and download speed.  This would involve more than
just a few pings so as to calculate a short but sustained data rate in both
directions.  
 
Thanks again,
Mike

[Nathan Fowler]

The problem is testing the Upload speed.  By using PING you're testing round-trip.  You're not going to be able to get a client to upload a file of X bytes unless you are using some type of Java application that can create a socket.  Timing downloads are easy, it's the upload that's difficult.

I'm assuming you're wanting something like http://wdc.speakeasy.net

[mike wainscott]

Yes, that's the general Idea.  I was hoping someone would already have some small script and the HTML to wrap around it for a turnkey app.