measuring network performance

Hi all,

When I try to measure the performance of a network (e.g. max
throughput, delay, jitter, loss ratio, etc.). I use ttcp to generate
(UDP or TCP) traffic, tcpdump to capture and tcptrace to analyze the
captures. Finally, xplot is needed to print graphs generated by
tcptrace.

What I need is a better framework, a single tool which provide all the
functionality.

Suggestions please?


Thank you.

Edu

Edu wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> When I try to measure the performance of a network (e.g. max
> throughput, delay, jitter, loss ratio, etc.). I use ttcp to generate
> (UDP or TCP) traffic, tcpdump to capture and tcptrace to analyze the
> captures. Finally, xplot is needed to print graphs generated by
> tcptrace.
>
> What I need is a better framework, a single tool which provide all the
> functionality.
>
> Suggestions please?
>
>
> Thank you.
>
> Edu
Try Ethereal which will provide I believe will provide you all the
functionality that you are looking for...

www.ethereal.com

> > When I try to measure the performance of a network (e.g. max
> > throughput, delay, jitter, loss ratio, etc.). I use ttcp to generate
> > (UDP or TCP) traffic, tcpdump to capture and tcptrace to analyze the
> > captures. Finally, xplot is needed to print graphs generated by
> > tcptrace.
> >
> > What I need is a better framework, a single tool which provide all the
> > functionality.

> Try Ethereal which will provide I believe will provide you all the
> functionality that you are looking for...
>
> www.ethereal.com

Hi again,

Ethereal is a network monitor which performs passive analysis. What I
need is something which include mechanisms to measure the maximum
throughput (so it have to inject packets on the network and ethereal
doesn't).
I've also used mgen or iperf, but yet are necessary supplementary
tools for an exhaustive analysis.



Edu

In comp.os.linux.networking Edu <(E-Mail Removed)>:
>> > When I try to measure the performance of a network (e.g. max
>> > throughput, delay, jitter, loss ratio, etc.). I use ttcp to generate
>> > (UDP or TCP) traffic, tcpdump to capture and tcptrace to analyze the
>> > captures. Finally, xplot is needed to print graphs generated by
>> > tcptrace.
>> >
>> > What I need is a better framework, a single tool which provide all the
>> > functionality.
[..]

> I've also used mgen or iperf, but yet are necessary supplementary
> tools for an exhaustive analysis.

Tried netperf?

http://www.netperf.org/

--
Michael Heiming (X-PGP-Sig > GPG-Key ID: EDD27B94)
mail: echo (E-Mail Removed) | perl -pe 'y/a-z/n-za-m/'
#bofh excuse 231: We had to turn off that service to comply
with the CDA Bill.

Michael Heiming <michael+(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:<492r52-(E-Mail Removed)>...
> In comp.os.linux.networking Edu <(E-Mail Removed)>:
> >> > When I try to measure the performance of a network (e.g. max
> >> > throughput, delay, jitter, loss ratio, etc.). I use ttcp to generate
> >> > (UDP or TCP) traffic, tcpdump to capture and tcptrace to analyze the
> >> > captures. Finally, xplot is needed to print graphs generated by
> >> > tcptrace.
> >> >
> >> > What I need is a better framework, a single tool which provide all the
> >> > functionality.
> [..]
>
> > I've also used mgen or iperf, but yet are necessary supplementary
> > tools for an exhaustive analysis.
>
> Tried netperf?
>
> http://www.netperf.org/

Netperf will give throughput (*_STREAM) and can give round-trip delay
(*_RR). It does not give a direct loss ratio for TCP at least (it
would have to make other calls to retrieve TCP stats - patches always
welcome , but you can infer one in the UDP_STREAM test taking the
sender versus reeiver stats.

For jitter, you would want to compile -DINTERVALS and then you can
specify -v 2 and see a histogram of either time spent in send()
(*_STREAM) or the round-trip time of each transaction (*_RR).

If you know the typical TCP RTO's for your situation, you could also I
suppose infer a loss ratio from that histogram, taking those points
that were >= RTO as having some number of retransmissions involved.

happy benchmarking,

rick jones

BTW, if you do compile -DINTERVALS, add -DHAVE_GETHRTIME if your
system has gethrtime() - that should help minimize the timing
overhead. netperf 2.3 or later should have that support.