Speedtest CLI. Run speedtest on pfSense box

aln

@adamoutler I committed a fix. try the latest version.

johnpoz

@aln said in Speedtest CLI. Run speedtest on pfSense box:

only reason to run speedtest on pfSense is to test your ISP without speed drops of other elements in your network.

And what might those be? While I hear you, the problem is running speedtest on your router doesn't always show you full speed of your connection.. Router meant to route, not but be a client... There are many thread here with people asking why when run speed test on pfsense do I not see my full isp speed..

Such any tool that makes it easy to do the test, it for sure going to bring more and more of those questions.
See @jimp post from above https://forum.netgate.com/post/675198

example just ran, to same server

Not saying not good work.. Problem is there is rarely a time you need to run such a test from the edge.. If you think something in your network is slowing down your connection, then connect direct to the router with your client.

2nd test.. same thing connection from router is showing slower than thru router

This is to be expected.. Nothing wrong with the router.. Its just not really a place to test if your getting full speed from your isp. Since the router is not meant to be a client in such tests, its meant to route packets..

Same thing comes up all the time over on the unifi forums about their routers doing speed tests.

MoonKnight

@johnpoz
Hi, I don't see so much different in the speedtest from pfsense or form my computer. Only different is the ping, but not much 2-5 ms different. :)

johnpoz

And what is your internet speed?

Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7400 CPU

That is a pretty hefty "router" cpu ;)

MoonKnight

@johnpoz
I have 500/500 Mbps

Yeah, i do have an overkill pfsense. But right now i'm running my backup pfsense, so only Intel (R) Core(TM) i5-6400 CPU, hehe :)

luckman212

@johnpoz makes a good point, many pfSense installs on low power CPUs such as ARM or Atom will fail to measure the speed accurately. I've experienced this many times.

BUT, it's still very useful to have this as a "grain of salt" measurement, esp. when access to the LAN is limited or degraded. This has helped me confirm for example, that a remote site's ISP connection (300Mbps) was running fine, and that the slowness they were experiencing was due to a poor WiFi connection. Up to around 300Mbps the speeds can usually be measured reasonably well - even on devices like the SG2440 or SG3100.

aln

@CiscoX I guess my pfSense also falls in the overkill category i5, 8GB, 60GB :)

johnpoz

@CiscoX nice connection! Love to have that, while get 500 down, my upload is only 50... Would just love for it to be symmetrical..

@luckman212 is right on target for the point trying to make.. I agree it can be a useful tool to have available.. My only concern is make it so available to your not so experienced users could cause of flood on "why" pfsense isn't showing my full speed..

I think this is the point jimp was trying to make way back in 2017 ;)

aln

For those who downloaded my dashboard widget. Please get the latest update, I did some bug fixing.

netblues

Its cool, and if you ran pf on virtual then probably you do have the muscles.....
How about a disclaimer explaining that on a mouseover on the widget (so we can keep everybody happy?)

And for the installer, please make a pf version check. If it runs on previous versions it will create problems.

johnpoz

@netblues said in Speedtest CLI. Run speedtest on pfSense box:

How about a disclaimer explaining that on a mouseover on the widget

Good idea, but the users I am talking about don't pay attention to stuff like that, or read the docs, or even know how to search a forum, or read even stickies.. etc ;)

You could make it screen they have to acknowledge, force them to do a captcha to acknowledge, etc.. Before the widget would even work. And they still won't get it and be asking - why does my pfsense box not get full speed with speed test.. Then will come the "is it a bug" posts ;)

netblues

@johnpoz But you DO give them root access after all :P

When this happens, you only have to post the disclaimer..
(not that you aren't right...)

aln

@johnpoz you made a point regarding speedtest on the router. I still say the the most accurate ISP speedtest is on the router itself, eliminating the rest of the network hops.
I found the best explanation on this post so I did a little test myself. My i5 CPU usually sits on 1% usage (yes, overkill pfSense box). While running speedtest it peaks to 6%.
So I guess that the "problem" is indeed CPU utilisation on inferior hardware and not that speedtest shouldn't be run on the router as a rule of thumb.
It is perfectly ok to run a router on a lesser CPU, routing is not CPU intensive task, but for those who have it then it is great to be able to use your machine to do some more for you.

And if anyone will be looking for this information in the future then it is here. There is no need for disclaimers, popups or anything else to explain it.

johnpoz

@aln said in Speedtest CLI. Run speedtest on pfSense box:

still say the the most accurate ISP speedtest is on the router itself, eliminating the rest of the network hops.

Logic is flawed... I just showed where the router is not showing the full speed of the connection, yet a client routing through said firewall router is..

The problem with doing such tests on a "router" is the router normally is not designed to do such testing - its a router.. not a client... It routes packets, it firewalls traffic. It not meant to be a client doing speed test. Now if you have some low speed connection or a BEAST of router then sure you might not have a problem.. As per the example in this thread.. JFC I5-7600 cpu for a "router" That is nuts for any sort of soho network... That cpu has a tdp of 65W.. Why would anyone want such beast to firewall/route.. Just sucking juice!

If your switches are hindering your speed, you got ISSUES! If your wifi is reaching your max isp speed... That is normal for any decent speed connection.. Since wireless is just not really capable of full gig speeds - be it the AP capabilities, or quite often just the client not able to do it..

Testing isp speed via a wifi client is normally never a "good" test.. What you should be testing is if your wifi client can do what your wifi network should be able to do.. Normally something lower than your isp speed.. Unless you got some low speed connection.

aln

@johnpoz I don't know how your logic works, but if I want to test my ISP then I want to exclude switches and wifi APs from the test.
Your explanation on how a router (yes, pfSense is basically a router, no need to use parentheses) is not a client is completely wrong. A router is first of all a client, it connects to a network and being served an IP address. Therefor it's a client!
Your test on the router shows slower results because your CPU doesn't have the juice to run the test, that's all. For many others it works perfectly. And why do we use those over sized hardware? Because we can afford it, we don't care about the electricity bill, we like playing with it and ... we can run speedtest on it :)

netblues

Also, in some cases, especially in remote support, it is not practical to have access to internal resources to run browser based speed test or cli over unix terminals.
So, yes, if we are optimizing things, probably it won't cut it.
But if we need a broad estimate if things are more or less within expected performance, this comes handy.
A problematic wan connection will be revealed immediately if there is packet loss, errors etc., before even touching any access cpe.

Certainly, there is no one size fits all answer to this :)

adamoutler

@aln please start a new thread. This needs a new thread.

RaidArray

I guess I have some apologies to make,

first, sorry for providing the original instructions for the how to make the gui to show the speedtest, I feel it may have divided the community over whether it should exist, allowing for the user to test speed from the router itself or a device behind it. my need came about because every time I had an issue with my ISP I was forced to unplug everything from their device and plug in a single laptop/desktop which after a period of time became a pain point.

secondly my website is back online at a new address www.some-useful.info, sorry it's took a while, but having seen the progress made by the likes of aln and his script, it's not really relevant anymore as we've moved on from the original I came up with.

As a request to aln can you look to include a check for updates button on your implementation or have the script check for updates periodically, save me looking for posts that say an update has been issued.

regards
Zak

RaidArray

@adamoutler, sorry i've missed loads on this thread and the general bigger picture, but how does starting a new thread help?

aln

Hi @RaidArray ,

To be honest about it I didn't even see your earlier post before jumping into this thread.
I did read it now. There is one problem with your approach, embedding a widget the way you did still doesn't perform the test from the router but rather from the client. All the test is done from the browser and by this you miss your original goal, that is to test your ISP.
If you have the traffic graphs widget on the dashboard and you monitor WAN and LAN networks you can see that running my widget will show traffic only on the WAN interface. With your approach you will see the traffic on the LAN as well.
My reason for creating a widget is exactly as you describe it, testing my connection directly on the line so my ISP cant BS me and ask me do disconnect half of my equipment.
This is really quick and dirty work, but your idea of including update (or even autoupdate) is great! TY.