[K12OSN] Testing actual network speeds

Dan Young dyoung at mesd.k12.or.us
Thu Jan 4 17:01:46 UTC 2007


Carl Keil wrote:
> Can anyone suggest a way to test my LAN speeds that I'm using for
> K12LTSP?  Screen redraws are jerky and slow on some of my clients.  I've
> always suspected my network cabling wasn't quite right, but I don't know
> how to test it.

You can check for errors and find out what speed your NICs are
negotiating with ifconfig and ethtool. Substitute your ethernet
interfaces for eth0 (i.e. it may be eth1, etc.)

"ifconfig eth0 | grep errors"
Any number of errors is not good, especially if that number rises much
over time.

"ethtool eth0"
Look at speed and duplex.

Throughput can be monitored with iptraf (install w/ yum). The detailed
interface statistics can tell you incoming/outgoing kbps.

If your switches are "managed", you might want to use their command-line
or web interfaces to look for CRC errors or similar. With these kind of
problems, it pays to be methodical and check every device/port between
the server and the client.

-- 
Dan Young <dyoung at mesd.k12.or.us>
Multnomah ESD - Technology Services
503-257-1562




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