ICMP Bandwidth Test

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

Overview

The ICMP Bandwidth Tester (Ping Speed) can be used to approximately evaluate (algorithm is not very precise) the throughput to any remote computer and thereby help to discover network ‘bottlenecks’.

The ICMP test uses two standard echo-requests per second. Time between these pings can be changed. As ping packet size can be varied, it is possible to evaluate connection parameters and speed approximately with different packet sizes. Statistics for throughput are calculated using the entire size of the ICMP packets, interval between ICMP echo-request and echo-reply and differences between parameters of the first packets and the second.

Topics covered in this manual:

Installation

The ICMP Bandwidth Test feature is included in the advanced-tools package. The software package file advanced-tools-2.6.x.npk can be downloaded from MikroTik’s web page www.MikroTik.com. To install the package, please upload the correct version file to the router and reboot. Use BINARY mode ftp transfer.

Hardware Resource Usage

There is no other significant resource usage.

ICMP Bandwidth Test Description

[admin@MikroTik] tool> ping-speed

	   <address>
		  do
     first-ping-size
	    interval
		once  print statistics once and quit
    second-ping-size
  time-between-pings
[admin@MikroTik] tool> ping-speed
Setting description:
do - scription feature
first-ping-size - Size of the first ICMP packet (default value=32)
second-ping-size - Size of the second ICMP packet (default value=1500)
time between pings - time between these two ICMP echo-requests in seconds. New ICMP-packet pair will never be sent before previous pair is completely sent and the algorithm will never send more than two requests in one second

Bandwidth Test Example

Correct showings:

[admin@MikroTik] tool> ping-speed 10.0.0.202 first-ping-size=750 second-ping-size=760
    current: 4.32Mbps
    average: 5.32Mbps

[admin@MikroTik] tool>
Incorrect showings:
[admin@MikroTik] tool> ping-speed 10.0.0.202 first-ping-size=1000
    current: 2666.66Mbps
    average: 764.46Mbps

[admin@MikroTik] tool>
Note that you should know approximate connection speed to a remote host and do not pay attention to overt erroneous showings and change ping size values until you get what you want to get. Besides, you should look only on average value as it is more informative.


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