Bandwidth Test

Document revision 19-Nov-2002
This document applies to MikroTik RouterOS v2.6

Overview

The Bandwidth Tester can be used to monitor the throughput only to a remote MikroTik router (either wired or wireless) and thereby help to discover network ‘bottlenecks’.

The TCP test uses the standard TCP protocol with acknowledgments and follows the TCP algorithm on how many packets to send according to latency, dropped packets, and other features in the TCP algorithm. Please review the TCP protocol for details on its internal speed settings and how to analyze its behavior. Statistics for throughput are calculated using the entire size of the TCP packet. As acknowledgments are an internal working of TCP, their size and usage of the link are not included in the throughput statistics. Therefore this statistic is not as reliable as the UDP statistic when estimating throughput.

The UDP tester sends 110% or more packets than currently reported as received on the other side of the link. To see the maximum throughput of a link, the packet size should be set for the maximum MTU allowed by the links – usually this is 1500 bytes. There is no acknowledgment required by UDP; this implementation means that the closest approximation of the throughput can be seen.

Topics covered in this manual:

Installation

The Bandwidth Test feature is included in the 'system' package. No installation is needed for this feature

Hardware Resource Usage

!Caution! Bandwidth Test uses all available bandwidth (by default) and may impact network usability.

There is no other significant resource usage.

Bandwidth Test Description

Bandwidth Test Server Configuration

[admin@MikroTik] tool> bandwidth-server
Configure network bandwidth tester service. Use authentication for disabling
unwanted bandwidth wasting. Note that remote router must be MikroTik router in
order to run the test.

  session
    print
      get  get value of property
      set
   export
[admin@MikroTik] tool> bandwidth-server print
		    enabled: yes
	       authenticate: no
    allocate-udp-ports-from: 2000
	       max-sessions: 10
[admin@MikroTik] tool>
Setting description:
enable - enable client connections for bandwidth test
authenticate - communicate only with authenticated (by valid username and password) clients
allocate-udp-ports-from - allocate UDP ports from
max-sessions - maximal number of bandwidth-test clients
The list of current connections can be get in session submenu:
[admin@MikroTik] tool> bandwidth-server session

   print  print values of item properties
  remove  remove item
[admin@MikroTik] tool> bandwidth-server session print
  # FROM	    PROTOCOL DIRECTION USER
  0 10.0.0.202	    tcp      send
[admin@MikroTik] tool>

Bandwidth Test Client Configuration

Bandwidth Test uses TCP or UDP protocol for test. The test tries to use maximum or partial amount of bandwidth to test link speed. Be aware that default test uses all available bandwidth and may impact network usability.

[admin@MikroTik] tool> bandwidth-test
Run TCP or UDP bandwidth test. Tries to use maximum or partial amount of
bandwidth to test link speed. Note that remote router must be MikroTik router
in order to run the test. Be aware that default test uses all available
bandwidth and may impact network usability.

	 <address>
  assume-lost-time
	 direction  Direction of data flow
		do
	  duration
	  interval
    local-tx-speed
	      once  print statistics once and quit
	  password  Password for remote user
	  protocol  Protocol to use for test
   remote-tx-speed
	      size  UDP packet size or TCP segment size
	      user
[admin@MikroTik] tool> bandwidth-test

Descriptions of arguments:

address - IP address of destination host
assume-lost-time - If Bandwidth Server is not responding for that time, assume that connection is lost
direction - specify the direction of the test (receive, transmit, both, default is transmit)
do - Script source
duration - Duration of the test
interval - Delay between messages (in seconds). Default is 1 second. Can be 20ms...5s
local-tx-speed - Transfer test maximum speed (given in bits per second)
password - Password for remote user
protocol - Type of protocol to use (UDP or TCP, default TCP)
remote-tx-speed - Receive test maximum speed (given in bits per second)
size - Packet size in bytes (50..1500, default 512). Works only with UDP protocol
user - Remote user

Bandwidth Test Example

[admin@MikroTik] tool> bandwidth-test 10.0.0.202 user=admin direction=both protocol=udp \
\... size=1500 duration=14s
		  status: done testing
	      tx-current: 11.49Mbps
    tx-10-second-average: 10.05Mbps
	tx-total-average: 7.96Mbps
	      rx-current: 12.55Mbps
    rx-10-second-average: 10.33Mbps
	rx-total-average: 8.14Mbps

[admin@MikroTik] tool>


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