pingdiff: Bandwidth Estimation using ICMP
Previously I found that to estimate bandwidth of an IP network link it's possible to do it based on a formula that takes into account the difference between a small ping and a large ping. (see pingb) Now I updated that algorithm to look for the smallest ping replies. This works better because network links are inherently noisy and there is large variation between pings. By doing the measurement on the minimum values over many tries, the estimation becomes more accurate.
#!/bin/bash
#
# pingdiff : bandwidth estimation through ICMP echo
# ver : 0.1
#
# (C) 2018 Tomas Florian
#
#
# This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
# Usage
# pingdiff IP MAXPAYLOAD
#
# Experiment with MAX payload size between 100 and 64000 the bigger you can specify
# the more accurate the estimate will be
# The longer you let the loop running the more accurate the results will be
# in my experience the accuracy is +/- 50%
# Surprisingly the accuracy is not affected by link saturation as much as I would expect
# Ex. 10Gbps link shows 4Gbps whether saturated or not
#Errata
# bad error handling (ex Small ping > Big Ping, ping timeouts etc)
#optional configure these by running against 127.0.0.1 to get ping overhead
#LOCALHOST_OVERHEAD_SMALL=0.011
LOCALHOST_OVERHEAD_SMALL=0
#LOCALHOST_OVERHEAD_BIG=0.071
LOCALHOST_OVERHEAD_BIG=0
PAYLOAD_SMALL=1
if [ -z "$1" ]; then
echo "usage: pingdiff IP PAYLOAD"
exit 1
fi
if [ -z "$2" ]; then
echo "usage: pingdiff IP PAYLOAD"
exit 1
fi
IP=$1
PAYLOAD=$2
echo "IP=$IP, PAYLOAD=$PAYLOAD"
echo "" > big
echo "" > small
#for i in `jot 999`;
while [ 1 ]
do
#echo $i
BIG=`ping -s$PAYLOAD -c1 $IP | grep time | grep -o time=.* | cut -d'=' -f2 | cut -d' ' -f1`
sleep 0.5
SMALL=`ping -s$PAYLOAD_SMALL -c1 $IP | grep time | grep -o time=.* | cut -d'=' -f2 | cut -d' ' -f1`
sleep 0.5
#BIG=`ping -s$PAYLOAD -c1 $IP | grep time | grep -o time=.* | cut -d'=' -f2 | cut -d' ' -f1`
#sleep 0.5
BIG=`echo "$BIG - $LOCALHOST_OVERHEAD_BIG" | bc`
SMALL=`echo "$SMALL - $LOCALHOST_OVERHEAD_SMALL" | bc`
echo $BIG >> big
echo $SMALL >> small
SMALL_MIN=`cat small | grep [0-9].* | awk '{if(min==""){min=max=$1}; if($1>max) {max=$1}; if($1<min) {min=$1}; total+=$1; count+=1} END {print min}'`
BIG_MIN=`cat big | grep [0-9].* | awk '{if(min==""){min=max=$1}; if($1>max) {max=$1}; if($1<min) {min=$1}; total+=$1; count+=1} END {print min}'`
PAYLOAD_DIFF=`echo "$PAYLOAD - $PAYLOAD_SMALL" | bc`
#echo "SMALL_MIN=$SMALL_MIN"
#echo "BIG_MIN=$BIG_MIN"
ROUNDTRIPDIFF=`echo "$BIG_MIN - $SMALL_MIN" | bc`
PINGSPERSEC=`echo "1000 / $ROUNDTRIPDIFF" | bc`
KBPS=`echo "$PINGSPERSEC * $PAYLOAD_DIFF * 8 * 2 / 1000" | bc`
MBPS=`echo $KBPS / 1000 | bc`
echo "$MBPS Mbps (SMALL_MIN=$SMALL_MIN,BIG_MIN=$BIG_MIN)"
done