19 ms·

Run an Internet Speed Test from the Command Line

98 points by dragondax 7y ago

teddyh 7y ago
Users in Sweden might be better served by this: http://www.bredbandskollen.se/en/bredbandskollen-cli/ http://www.bredbandskollen.se/en/bredbandskollen-cli/
- wwn_se 7y ago
  Should work fine for most of europe or at least the north. All servers are in sweden
jlgaddis 7y ago
A few suggestions: 1. look into what /usr/local/{,s}bin/ and ${HOME}/.local/bin/ are for (and how to add them to your ${PATH}, if necessary) 2. look into why you shouldn't recommend things like "sudo wget ..." (at the least, use "wget" followed by a "sudo mv").
bfred_it 7y ago
For those who are more familiar with npm, there are two packages for this by Sindre Sorhus. You can run them without preinstalling them with npx, if you wish: npx speed-test npx fast-cli The second one uses fast.com
- CallMeMarc 7y ago
  Also speedtest-net is a great one, it also has an programmatic API.
davewood 7y ago
there is a standard package available in the debian repository apt install speedtest-cli Description: Command line interface for testing internet bandwidth using speedtest.net Speedtest.net is a webservice that allows you to test your broadband connection by downloading a file from one of many Speedtest.net servers from around the world. . This utility allows you to use the Speedtest.net service from the command line. . Note: This tool accesses speedtest.net over http, while the web-based client uses websockets. This tool has shown to become increasingly inacurate with high-speed connections. For more information, see the readme on: https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli
- croon 7y ago
  Might concern some users: I had an issue on my 250/250Mbps-line using speedtest-cli in that it showed the correct download speed, but only 4Mbps upload. Googling suggests it could be an issue with slow CPU/low RAM. My (now old) server was by no means a beast as it had a throttled i3-3220T with 8GB RAM, but it should be plenty fast for that task. The solution I came across on reddit/stack was to use this [0] instead, which solved the discrepancy for me: [0] https://github.com/taganaka/SpeedTest https://github.com/taganaka/SpeedTest
  - mfontani 7y ago
    Indeed, my own raspberry pi was returning weird results with the python-based one; I switched to this one and it is more consistent. I had to add an "--output json" option to it to not have to redo all my tooling around tracking the speedtest results, but forgot to make a pull request to the repo, and I've just done that: same json format as the python-based version.
    - walrus01 7y ago
      a raspberry pi 3/3b+ or whatever (not v4) should by no means be used for any sort of speed test, not only is the wifi weak/slow but the wired ethernet interface is also hanging off a usb2.0 bus.
      - Fnoord 7y ago
        > A raspberry pi 3/3b+ or whatever (not v4) should by no means be used for any sort of speed test You make a valid point though you could test the speed of the Raspberry Pi in question. As long as you take the caveats you mentioned into account, that's an OK context. Which is the problem with GP's post to begin with.
      - mfontani 7y ago
        My pi is connected directly to the router via ethernet, and the bandwidth available to my home connection isn't enough to saturate it "unfortunately" (~95/20) so this isn't massively a problem for me. YMMV.
simon_acca 7y ago
maybe it's not as accurate, but on a lot of systems where wget is already installed one can do with a lot less hassle: wget -O /dev/null http://speedtest-ams2.digitalocean.com/100mb.test http://speedtest-ams2.digitalocean.com/100mb.test Nota bene: - change the datacenter to a closer one when appropriate. - Unit is MB/s, rather than Mb/s, which is more common for this kind of test
- qplex 7y ago
  I've been using the wget method for a long time also. I think the only downside is that you need to know what you're fetching and from where. Edit: And for latency, there is /bin/ping
  - dragondax 7y ago
    Can't use wget for upload speeds...
    - qplex 7y ago
      While strictly true, if you can download at link capacity it usually means the upstream is okay too.
- afraca 7y ago
  To get a list of all the other locations go to the DO page (strip the filename): http://speedtest-ams2.digitalocean.com/ http://speedtest-ams2.digitalocean.com/ It's not https, for performance? ... (My download|upload: 33Mb/s | 8Mb/s)
pcroh 7y ago
hahahahahaha putorius
dspillett 7y ago
Note that some ISPs prioritise traffic to known speedtest targets, turning off traffic shaping rules that might otherwise slow bulk transfers. When this happens it means you are testing the likely maximum throughput of your connection not necessarily the throughput you will see more generally. This is why Netflix started fast.com - because it draws data from the same distribution points as their video streaming apps it means you can't prioritise the speedtest without also doing so for the video traffic or (more likely) you can't de-prioritise the video traffic without also getting bad scores in that particular speedtest. From Netflix's point of view it is an answer to people contacting support with "my speedtest results are fine, the problem must be your servers" when they are experiencing video lag/drops and other such problems and the issue is due to ISP traffic shaping or the ISP simply not having enough backhaul bandwidth. A more reliable test might be taking part in a busy public torrent: that way you are testing against arbitrary locations so your ISP can't be setting different shaping rules for them. Just remember to throttle upstream when testing downstream and vice-versa or saturation in the other direction will slow control packets that will in turn give you lower results for the one you are testing. This may fall into another trap though: unless you limit the number of active streams it may be an unrealistic test as more generally most processes use a small number of streams (or just a single one), and if you limit the number of streams too much you might get a lower result because each swarm member you connect to may be fairly saturated and sharing its bandwidth amongst many connections.
- jermaustin1 7y ago
  That said, I can and do get 200mbps+ on fast.com (my preferred/goto speedtest), and still experience constant buffering and the "sorry we can't play that video right now" message that kicks me out but then just clicking play again works. I'm not saying it's their servers or network, but I haven't found a reason for it based on my fast.com results.
  - HerrFolgreich 7y ago
    > but then just clicking pay again works freudian slip much?
teekert 7y ago
Hmm, it reports about a 10 times lower upload speed allthough my subscription is 50/50 symetrical. I can confirm that I usually do get to the correct speeds (~50 Mbit/s) when downloading things of my server... Where could this mismatch come form?
- hnarn 7y ago
  Quite obviously the server you are testing against.
- reacweb 7y ago
  Maybe MB/s rather than Mb/s. The ratio is 8.
raldu 7y ago
Run speed test with ssh and pv: $ yes | pv | ssh your_server "cat > /dev/null"
- jolmg 7y ago
  You can also pv /dev/zero | ssh your_server "cat > /dev/null" Both yours and this one check upload speed. To check download speed: ssh your_server 'cat /dev/zero' | pv > /dev/null or based on your suggestion: ssh your_server yes | pv > /dev/null And if you don't have a server to login to, you can find a big file on the web and use that to check download speed: curl -s http://some-place.com/big-file | pv > /dev/null Though curl also reports speed, so I guess you may as well just: curl http://some-place.com/big-file > /dev/null
mjlee 7y ago
If you need to do this, you may also need to get your external IP address from the CLI. Two ways I like are: dig +short myip.opendns.com curl icanhazip.com
- mlrtime 7y ago
  A little bit easier to remember: curl ifconfig.me
dfsegoat 7y ago
Surprised no-one has mentioned `iperf` on linux [1,2] for what that is worth. It lets you roll your own speed testing infrastructure basically: Run it as a server on one end you want to test, then run it as client against that server IP/hostname on the other end. It is very handy for measuring throughput between two boxes in a network (or anywhere for that matter). Several big ISPs have endpoints for testing it as well for a speedtest like experience [1]. [1] - https://iperf.fr/iperf-doc.php https://iperf.fr/iperf-doc.php [2] - https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/bionic/man1/iperf.1.html https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/bionic/man1/iperf.1.htm...
- jeanl 7y ago
  Iperf is really useful to test your own LAN. Didn't know you could use it to test your ISP speed (in some cases)
  - KingMachiavelli 7y ago
    Well, you need a endpoint outside your LAN to test. But there are some public servers[0] but not that many so it's hard to get good average speed unless you are willing to pay for some EC2 bandwidth. [0] https://iperf.fr/iperf-servers.php https://iperf.fr/iperf-servers.php
virtuallynathan 7y ago
speedtest-cli is garbage if you have >100Mbps Speeds. The dev refuses to acknowledge this: https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/226 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/226 Also not just me: https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/649 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/649 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/648 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/648 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/641 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/641 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/616 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/616 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/601 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/601 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/588 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/588 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/546 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/546
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  Counterpoint: it’s accurate for me on a 1Gbps symmetric connection - it actually gives me a better result than the web speed test which I assume is limited by Javascript performance.
- fatbas202 7y ago
  Was just looking through the thread for this comment. Because of this issue, I spent an obscene amount of time trying to diagnose a network problem that didn't exist when I upgraded to 1Gb. Hopefully others can avoid the same mistake.
- felipelemos 7y ago
  He locked all above issues.
  - metalliqaz 7y ago
    this project is the first time i've ever seen this kind of thing in problem reports. i've already seen enough to stay far away from that software.
- pekim 7y ago
  Closing the issues with an explanation of some sort would be one thing. But closing and locking them without any explanation is very strange. It makes it very difficult for anyone with the same problem to find any sort of explanation.

98 points by dragondax 7y ago

Users in Sweden might be better served by this: http://www.bredbandskollen.se/en/bredbandskollen-cli/ http://www.bredbandskollen.se/en/bredbandskollen-cli/

wwn_se 7y ago
Should work fine for most of europe or at least the north. All servers are in sweden

jlgaddis 7y ago

A few suggestions: 1. look into what /usr/local/{,s}bin/ and ${HOME}/.local/bin/ are for (and how to add them to your ${PATH}, if necessary) 2. look into why you shouldn't recommend things like "sudo wget ..." (at the least, use "wget" followed by a "sudo mv").

bfred_it 7y ago

For those who are more familiar with npm, there are two packages for this by Sindre Sorhus. You can run them without preinstalling them with npx, if you wish: npx speed-test npx fast-cli The second one uses fast.com

CallMeMarc 7y ago
Also speedtest-net is a great one, it also has an programmatic API.

davewood 7y ago

there is a standard package available in the debian repository apt install speedtest-cli Description: Command line interface for testing internet bandwidth using speedtest.net Speedtest.net is a webservice that allows you to test your broadband connection by downloading a file from one of many Speedtest.net servers from around the world. . This utility allows you to use the Speedtest.net service from the command line. . Note: This tool accesses speedtest.net over http, while the web-based client uses websockets. This tool has shown to become increasingly inacurate with high-speed connections. For more information, see the readme on: https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli

croon 7y ago
Might concern some users: I had an issue on my 250/250Mbps-line using speedtest-cli in that it showed the correct download speed, but only 4Mbps upload. Googling suggests it could be an issue with slow CPU/low RAM. My (now old) server was by no means a beast as it had a throttled i3-3220T with 8GB RAM, but it should be plenty fast for that task. The solution I came across on reddit/stack was to use this [0] instead, which solved the discrepancy for me: [0] https://github.com/taganaka/SpeedTest https://github.com/taganaka/SpeedTest
- mfontani 7y ago
  Indeed, my own raspberry pi was returning weird results with the python-based one; I switched to this one and it is more consistent. I had to add an "--output json" option to it to not have to redo all my tooling around tracking the speedtest results, but forgot to make a pull request to the repo, and I've just done that: same json format as the python-based version.
  - walrus01 7y ago
    a raspberry pi 3/3b+ or whatever (not v4) should by no means be used for any sort of speed test, not only is the wifi weak/slow but the wired ethernet interface is also hanging off a usb2.0 bus.
    - Fnoord 7y ago
      > A raspberry pi 3/3b+ or whatever (not v4) should by no means be used for any sort of speed test You make a valid point though you could test the speed of the Raspberry Pi in question. As long as you take the caveats you mentioned into account, that's an OK context. Which is the problem with GP's post to begin with.
    - mfontani 7y ago
      My pi is connected directly to the router via ethernet, and the bandwidth available to my home connection isn't enough to saturate it "unfortunately" (~95/20) so this isn't massively a problem for me. YMMV.

simon_acca 7y ago

maybe it's not as accurate, but on a lot of systems where wget is already installed one can do with a lot less hassle: wget -O /dev/null http://speedtest-ams2.digitalocean.com/100mb.test http://speedtest-ams2.digitalocean.com/100mb.test Nota bene: - change the datacenter to a closer one when appropriate. - Unit is MB/s, rather than Mb/s, which is more common for this kind of test

qplex 7y ago
I've been using the wget method for a long time also. I think the only downside is that you need to know what you're fetching and from where. Edit: And for latency, there is /bin/ping
- dragondax 7y ago
  Can't use wget for upload speeds...
  - qplex 7y ago
    While strictly true, if you can download at link capacity it usually means the upstream is okay too.
afraca 7y ago
To get a list of all the other locations go to the DO page (strip the filename): http://speedtest-ams2.digitalocean.com/ http://speedtest-ams2.digitalocean.com/ It's not https, for performance? ... (My download|upload: 33Mb/s | 8Mb/s)

pcroh 7y ago

hahahahahaha putorius

dspillett 7y ago

Note that some ISPs prioritise traffic to known speedtest targets, turning off traffic shaping rules that might otherwise slow bulk transfers. When this happens it means you are testing the likely maximum throughput of your connection not necessarily the throughput you will see more generally. This is why Netflix started fast.com - because it draws data from the same distribution points as their video streaming apps it means you can't prioritise the speedtest without also doing so for the video traffic or (more likely) you can't de-prioritise the video traffic without also getting bad scores in that particular speedtest. From Netflix's point of view it is an answer to people contacting support with "my speedtest results are fine, the problem must be your servers" when they are experiencing video lag/drops and other such problems and the issue is due to ISP traffic shaping or the ISP simply not having enough backhaul bandwidth. A more reliable test might be taking part in a busy public torrent: that way you are testing against arbitrary locations so your ISP can't be setting different shaping rules for them. Just remember to throttle upstream when testing downstream and vice-versa or saturation in the other direction will slow control packets that will in turn give you lower results for the one you are testing. This may fall into another trap though: unless you limit the number of active streams it may be an unrealistic test as more generally most processes use a small number of streams (or just a single one), and if you limit the number of streams too much you might get a lower result because each swarm member you connect to may be fairly saturated and sharing its bandwidth amongst many connections.

jermaustin1 7y ago
That said, I can and do get 200mbps+ on fast.com (my preferred/goto speedtest), and still experience constant buffering and the "sorry we can't play that video right now" message that kicks me out but then just clicking play again works. I'm not saying it's their servers or network, but I haven't found a reason for it based on my fast.com results.
- HerrFolgreich 7y ago
  > but then just clicking pay again works freudian slip much?

teekert 7y ago

Hmm, it reports about a 10 times lower upload speed allthough my subscription is 50/50 symetrical. I can confirm that I usually do get to the correct speeds (~50 Mbit/s) when downloading things of my server... Where could this mismatch come form?

hnarn 7y ago
Quite obviously the server you are testing against.
reacweb 7y ago
Maybe MB/s rather than Mb/s. The ratio is 8.

raldu 7y ago

Run speed test with ssh and pv: $ yes | pv | ssh your_server "cat > /dev/null"

jolmg 7y ago
You can also pv /dev/zero | ssh your_server "cat > /dev/null" Both yours and this one check upload speed. To check download speed: ssh your_server 'cat /dev/zero' | pv > /dev/null or based on your suggestion: ssh your_server yes | pv > /dev/null And if you don't have a server to login to, you can find a big file on the web and use that to check download speed: curl -s http://some-place.com/big-file | pv > /dev/null Though curl also reports speed, so I guess you may as well just: curl http://some-place.com/big-file > /dev/null

mjlee 7y ago

If you need to do this, you may also need to get your external IP address from the CLI. Two ways I like are: dig +short myip.opendns.com curl icanhazip.com

mlrtime 7y ago
A little bit easier to remember: curl ifconfig.me

dfsegoat 7y ago

Surprised no-one has mentioned `iperf` on linux [1,2] for what that is worth. It lets you roll your own speed testing infrastructure basically: Run it as a server on one end you want to test, then run it as client against that server IP/hostname on the other end. It is very handy for measuring throughput between two boxes in a network (or anywhere for that matter). Several big ISPs have endpoints for testing it as well for a speedtest like experience [1]. [1] - https://iperf.fr/iperf-doc.php https://iperf.fr/iperf-doc.php [2] - https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/bionic/man1/iperf.1.html https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/bionic/man1/iperf.1.htm...

jeanl 7y ago
Iperf is really useful to test your own LAN. Didn't know you could use it to test your ISP speed (in some cases)
- KingMachiavelli 7y ago
  Well, you need a endpoint outside your LAN to test. But there are some public servers[0] but not that many so it's hard to get good average speed unless you are willing to pay for some EC2 bandwidth. [0] https://iperf.fr/iperf-servers.php https://iperf.fr/iperf-servers.php

virtuallynathan 7y ago

speedtest-cli is garbage if you have >100Mbps Speeds. The dev refuses to acknowledge this: https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/226 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/226 Also not just me: https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/649 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/649 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/648 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/648 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/641 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/641 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/616 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/616 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/601 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/601 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/588 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/588 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/546 https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/546

Nextgrid 7y ago
Counterpoint: it’s accurate for me on a 1Gbps symmetric connection - it actually gives me a better result than the web speed test which I assume is limited by Javascript performance.
fatbas202 7y ago
Was just looking through the thread for this comment. Because of this issue, I spent an obscene amount of time trying to diagnose a network problem that didn't exist when I upgraded to 1Gb. Hopefully others can avoid the same mistake.
felipelemos 7y ago
He locked all above issues.
- metalliqaz 7y ago
  this project is the first time i've ever seen this kind of thing in problem reports. i've already seen enough to stay far away from that software.
pekim 7y ago
Closing the issues with an explanation of some sort would be one thing. But closing and locking them without any explanation is very strange. It makes it very difficult for anyone with the same problem to find any sort of explanation.