netperf

• Downloading netperf
• Running the server
• Running the client

netperf is the de-facto standard for network bandwidth testing between two hosts on a network. It blasts TCP data from a client host to a server host. This is different than transferring a file over the network, as you avoid any disk bottlenecks, and are using a standardized client and server for testing.

Downloading netperf

To save you the time, I have put netperf binaries up on our FTP server at ftp://ftp.chem.indiana.edu/pub/software/netperf/ - Simply download the binaries for your operating system, and in the case of UNIX hosts, extract them.

Running the server

The target of your bandwidth test has to have a server running. You do not have to be an administrator of the target host to start the netperf server, however. On the server, simply type netserver from the directory your executables are in. If you are in UNIX, you may need to type ./netserver instead, if the current directory is not in path.

% netserver 
Starting netserver at port 12865

If it says server_set_up: binding the socket: Address already in use, that means someone is already running the server on that machine. In that case, just continue to the next step to use the server that is already running on that host.

Running the client

The syntax for the client is netperf -H hostname. This is an example of me running it from home to the IonMan Cluster:

TCP STREAM TEST to ionman
Recv   Send    Send                          
Socket Socket  Message  Elapsed              
Size   Size    Size     Time     Throughput  
bytes  bytes   bytes    secs.    10^6bits/sec  

 87380  65535  65535    15.37       0.17

Throughput is in Mbps. Here are some ideal bandwidth numbers you should get within Chemistry:

• Insight Broadband: 0.17Mb/s (home->ionman)
• 100Mb/s Network: 94Mb/s (strongmad->ionman).
• Gigabit Network: 940Mb/s (ionman-n4->ionman-n5)
• Localhost: 5000 Mb/s (ionman-n1->ionman-n1)