Why is my throughput so low?

January 3, 2007 11:54 AM

My Google-FU has failed me. Is there any Linux software that will help me measure throughput? there's a bit

I have several devices on my home network, including a few Tivos, a macbook, a Linux notebook, and a Linux server, and a couple of printers. Using a wireless connection on both the Linux NB, and the Macbook, the Macbook consistantly gets much higher throughput to the server (for example, it takes me 10min to transfer a large file to the server, but takes 5min to download that same file from the server to the macbook).

Are there software available that will allow me to measure the throughput I am actually getting between two points (Linux NB and server) or better yet, is there anything that will show me the connection speed and the actual throughput on that connection?

posted by niteHawk to computers & internet (7 comments total)

iperf?
posted by rbs at 12:05 PM on January 3, 2007

i think nload should do it.
posted by tyamada at 12:06 PM on January 3, 2007

Wget will show the connection speed for file transfers. Ttcp will measure the point to point bandwidth over a network connection.
posted by calumet43 at 12:14 PM on January 3, 2007

Not entirely related, but close: I like iftop for measuring the current bandwidth usage of various connections via console.
posted by Xoder at 12:58 PM on January 3, 2007

I used to do throughput verification for our leased lines at my previous job. Iperf is what you want. If you want to run iperf on a regular basis, use bwctl - a far more stable daemon-ish wrapper around iperf that also allows you some security in the form os pre-shared keys. There are even some public bwctl servers that you can test against (after emailing to get a key).

Remember throughput != latency. While probably not a big issue on your home network, owamp is a great latency measurement tool.

Measurement aside, if you read up enough on the subject you'll probably come to realize that you should sync up the TCP stack options on your various machines to increase throughput. This is an excellent guide on TCP tuning that covers various OSs. Don't forget DrTCP for your winboxen!
posted by datacenter refugee at 1:31 PM on January 3, 2007 [1 favorite]

One more -- ntop.
posted by devbrain at 1:53 PM on January 3, 2007

iperf is a good tool.. but are you measuring this on the Macbook?

There are probably a dozen widgets that will show you realtime throughput. Most folks are recommending command line tools.

you can be lazy and go for some GUI ones too. there are a brazillion network graph widgets for Gnome too.
posted by drstein at 11:41 AM on January 4, 2007