The iperf utility is used to transfer data from one machine to another over the Internet. This is a client-server utility and is the go-to utility to test a Wide Area Network connection. To use this, type sudo apt-get install iperf. Then open port 5001 in your router and/or firewall to allow the incoming connection from the client. Run iperf -s on the server machine to start the iperf daemon.
ubuntu@ip-172-31-20-234:~$ iperf -s ------------------------------------------------------------ Server listening on TCP port 5001 TCP window size: 85.3 KByte (default) ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 4] local 172.31.20.234 port 5001 connected with xxx.xxx.xxx.xx port 47318 [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth [ 4] 0.0-16.8 sec 1.38 MBytes 687 Kbits/sec |
This is what you should get on the client when connecting to the server machine.
jason-H55-USB3% iperf -c xx.xx.xx.xxx ------------------------------------------------------------ Client connecting to xx.xx.xx.xxx, TCP port 5001 TCP window size: 85.0 KByte (default) ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 3] local 192.168.100.3 port 47318 connected with xx.xx.xx.xxx port 5001 [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth [ 3] 0.0-12.9 sec 1.38 MBytes 893 Kbits/sec |
This tests the network connection between the client and server machines. I was connected to my home machine with SSH over a VPN and also connected to an Amazon AWS instance via SSH. Amazon was running the server and my home machine was running a client. This shows the speed of the network connection I was getting to the Amazon EC2 instance. This is an easy way to test network connectivity from a client to a server.