Network performance testing software on Itanium 11.23 ??

[Craig A. Sharp]

I need to test the network performance on HPUX 11.23 on Itanium. A long time ago I used ttcp. I cannot find a version for 11.23.

Is there any other software out there similar to ttcp that will run on HPUX 11.23 that is low or no cost?

Thanks,

Craig

[Peter Godron · Accepted solution]

Craig,
how about:
http://hpux.connect.org.uk/hppd/hpux/Sysadmin/sysmon-0.92/
"Currently supported protocols include SMTP, IMAP, HTTP, TCP, UDP, NNTP, and PING tests."

Don't use it here, so can't comment.

Otherwise, you may have to get:
h21007.www2.hp.com/dspp/files/unprotected/ddk/gsg.pdf

See pages 12+13 "Network Tools"

[Dave Olker]

Hi Craig,

The best software I know of for testing network performance is Netperf. It's a tool written by HP's own Rick Jones. You can find it along with the documentation here: http://netperf.org.

The tool is extremely versatile and powerful. The command-line syntax can take some getting used to simply because of the huge number of possible tests it can run and the ability to pass in different options based on the type of test you're running. Again, the documentation is a big help. Best of all, it's free!

Regards,

Dave

[rick jones]

Dave - your check is in the mail :)

Craig - the netperf test which most closely resembles what ttcp did/does is the TCP_STREAM test (or UDP_STREAM). However, that may be only 1/2 the picture and so netperf includes tests like the TCP_RR test which can be used to measure latency.

Netperf will compile and run on just about any Unix/Linux out there, and even on Windows. I don't however distribute binaries, only sources. I believe that netperf will compile on UX with the "bundled" compiler but it will emit a bunch of warnings - since so much of the time when running netperf is in the kernel, the efficiency of compilation of netperf itself isn't all that big a deal.

WRT binaries, and related to that, you could in theory use an 11.11 PA version of ttcp (or even netperf) on an 11.23 Itanium system. Now, the Aries emulation of the PA-RISC stuff will increase the time spent in netperf itself, again though it shouldn't be tooo bad - it has been a while since I did that so I'm a bit fuzzy on the recollections.

Still, it is best to compile fresh for the system on which it will run.

There is also the much larger, more involved netperf4 - I jokingly call it the egg-laying, wolly-milk-pig version of netperf :)

Finally, ifyou are going to make much use of netperf, it would be good to join netperf-talk@netperf.org. I suspect I'll see many netperf-related posts in the ITRC forums, but I can virtually guarantee I'll see everything in netperf-talk :)