network card speed

sp149 · 06-11-2009, 10:06 PM

how to do a speed test on my Redhat Enterprise 4 update 4 server.

I've been told that the server is slow and data is being backed up very slowly to the backup server.

the server seems fine and nothing much running on it.

Can someone guide, how do i cross check.

Thanks

FragInHell · 06-11-2009, 10:21 PM

ethtool will help you here. It can tell what speed the interface is set to or you can use it to force a speed etc.

sp149 · 06-11-2009, 10:53 PM

Thankyou ..

I need something for speed testing for the network interface.

grepmasterd · 06-11-2009, 11:37 PM

some tools to try

netperf
iperf
netpipe
ttcp

they should all give you roughly the same results, so pick your poison.

FragInHell · 06-12-2009, 12:17 AM

You can also create a file say 100mb in size (use dd to create a file) and the FTP it from place to place, that will give you an idea of speed as well. Don't use SCP as SSH can use compression.

grepmasterd · 06-12-2009, 12:26 AM

scp only uses compression if you tell it to ('-C' flag). and both ftp and scp involve disk access as part of the test.

If you just want to test your nics, use one of the tools above, like netperf (very simple). It only uses memory (fast), system buses (also fast) and and network hardware. If you get good results, it might be a good next step to try ftp or some file-based test to see if file i/o is the point of slowness.

sp149 · 06-12-2009, 10:33 AM

Thank you ..i will try it and get back..

Appreciate all the help