I'm looking for something that will graph my internet speeds. Not what I'm currently utilizing for bandwidth on any single machine or group of machines; what my internet is actually capable of.

Reason? I am with a garbage ISP that has overloaded their equipment. During peak times, I run speed tests and they're about .4mbps when I should be getting 6mbps. I'd be content with 4mbps. They keep telling me it's my firewall, but even when I bypass the firewall, I get the same results. They're telling me I'm crazy.

I would like something that will run 1 speedtest an hour and graph the results. I can handle the cron side, but I only know bash, which doesn't appear to be capable of this. Does anyone know of something already made that I could use under Ubuntu and/or CentOS?

Perhaps use something like MRTG to do the graphing, and either ping your next hop and graph the results. That will show if the latency with your ISP changes.

Then you can also use cron to periodically upload/download a large file to see what your average throughput is like during particular times.

They could be right of course. When things are (real) bad, go power-cycle the modem. I'd been putting up with crap for ages until I went and got a new one after similar frustrations.

I can tell exactly what's going on though. I can literally watch the speeds decrease as people get off of work. 5PM 90%, 8PM 50%, 9PM 20%, 11PM 40%, 1AM 80%, 3AM 100%.

I've swapped modems, routers, firewalls, NICs. The hub is in my friggin back yard. My problem here is that they're basically telling me that I'm wrong and that I'm getting my speeds. I'd like to hook up a couple spare machines, one behind the router, and one to the modem directly and show them these graphs as evidence.

I would suggest changing your ISP.
Even if you do monitor your connection speeds and submit graphs showing claimed vs actual speeds to them, I doubt they will take much action.

Contracts and such prevent me from doing so. But nevermind the quantity of suck my ISP provides. Is there something out there that will do this?

there is another way...
Put a large file to download on a download manager if using windows use flashget in linux use multiget,kget etc
file size should above 4 gb so u can monitor speed for a long time...
these can show you average downloading speed...
multiply this speed with 8 ..as the speed will be in KBps or MBps and the ISPs give speed in Mbps
as small b for bit capital B for Byte so the factor of 8.

in linux u can use system monitor to view current downloading speed or uploading speed ...


RAHUL KUMAR
reform.co.nr

I have to wonder what all this is going to prove, even if you do find something.
The data rate coming out of your cable/phone link whatever is going to reflect the worst constraint in the journey from your ISP to you. Probably the last piece of wire. If you are in a tenement, or on a street with just one link to service everyone, more load will mean congestion - just when everyone else is trying to use it. No matter how fast the ISP is trying to stuff bits down the (fat) pipe at their end.

Or your ISP could of course just suck ...

Go here: http://www.dslreports.com/

It helps to register, because you can store your speed tests, and print them all out when you're done, or next year! You can compare your results to other users of your ISP, report actual bandwidth, and advertised bandwidth. These tests don't lie. Dslreports is industry standard.

Just take one of your PCs, and come right off the modem into the NIC. Run tests to different parts of the United States. There's about 400 locations to send and receive bandwidth test data. You'll get a report with each test, down and up speeds, and they will be stored for you. The date and time of each test is recorded, along with information that it was done using Dslreports.

Dslreports tests all types of ISP connections, not just dsl. You can report your ISP for advertising higher bandwidth than it delivers, and the tests will prove it. So, you're no longer a lone voice speaking to a corporate machine. You've got proof from a reliable source. But I do caution: Your modem might be the problem. Even if the modem claims to handle a certain bandwidth, protocols change and obsolete the original specifications.

I had a modem rated up to 37 Mbits/s, but it was failing under a load of 18 Mbits/s. Also, high speed modems negotiate a reliable bandwidth based on connection quality. DSL and other multiband public telephone switch based Internet access don't ordinarily choke on the number of users, but cable Internet does. The only thing that can slow a DSL type connection is congestion in the line to the public telephone switch.

With satellite Internet, the weak link is the up connection, which uses public switched telephone lines. The download comes from satellites, which have huge bandwidth capacity. Cloudy weather also affects satellite Internet.

Dslreports allows free registration.