tcpblast(8)

💖 tcpblast(8) — the manual page bestie 💖

okay so you want to know how fast your network is actually going? that's literally what this is for, no cap. this is the tcpblast page from section 8 (system admin / commands) and it's about to be your new favorite little throughput-probing bestie. 🦋

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✨ NAME ✨

tcpblast — a tool for measuring network bandwidth. that's it, that's the whole job. 💅

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

tcpblast [options] destination[:port]

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🎀 DESCRIPTION 🎀

so tcpblast/udpblast is a simple little tool for probing your network and estimating its throughput. by default it sends 300 blocks (each one 1024 bytes) of data to the destination host you picked. yes bestie, it just starts yeeting bytes at them. ✨

destination can be a name or an address, and it can be IPv4 or IPv6. now listen — when you specify an IPv6 address with a port, it has to look like this:

'[3ffe:8010::1]:9'

those single quotes matter, okay?? they stop the shell from expanding the [] and ruining your whole vibe. 🙈

👑 Options 👑

• -4, --ipv4 — use only ipv4 address
• -6, --ipv6 — use only ipv6 address
• -a — send random data
• -b BUF_SIZE — socket buf size (default: -1, don't change), and if you put a - in front it gets subtracted from the results
• -c, --count BLOCKS — change the default (300) number of blocks, range: 1..10000000
• -d DOTFREQ — print a dot every DOTFREQ blocks, and this disables the continuous speed display
• -h, --help — this help
• -i, --delay DELAY — write delay in microseconds (EXPERIMENTAL)
• -l, --last BLKS — show also speed for last BLKS blocks
• -m — results for every block in separate line
• -n, --nwrite — do not write, use e.g. with chargen port
• -o — switch from continuous speed displaying to dots printing
• -p PORT — bind this local PORT
• -q --quiet — show only final statistics
• -r, --read — read data returned to us, switches default port to echo
• -R, --rate RATESPEC — limit the speed according to the RATESPEC
• -s BLOCK_SIZE — block size (default 1024 bytes)
• -t MAXTIME — limit time to MAXTIME (up to 42950 h)
• --tcp — use TCP (default)
• --udp — use UDP (default if named udpblast)
• -v, --verbosity — verbosity, default 0, maximum 3. -v adds time display, -vv also speed in B/s, -v — speed in b/s.
• -V, --version — version
• destination — host name or address
• port — use port #/name xyz instead of default port 9
• RATESPEC — RATE[,TIME][:RATE[,TIME]]... where RATE is generating data at RATE speed in B/s, and TIME is for TIME seconds (can be a floating point number), and the last one can be omitted — and if it is, that time will be infinite 🌀

🌈 Unit multipliers & specifiers 🌈

options -b, -c, -R, -s and -t can all use case insensitive unit multipliers and specifiers:

• size (bytes):
  • -b and -s argument without units is in bytes, and you can use [{k,m,g}]b (lower or upper case) for KB, MB or GB. {k,m,g} are powers of 1024.
• number:
  • -c argument is just a number, and it can have k, m or g added (powers of 1024), no unit needed.
• rate (bytes per second):
  • -R RATE is in B/s or Bps, and the postfixes can be [{k,m,g}]{b/s,bps}
• time (seconds):
  • -t and -R TIME argument is in seconds, and it can be postfixed with [{k,m,g}]{s,min,h,w,m,y}

🍓 Example 🍓

tcpblast -b 4KB -c 10k -R 10kbps,2:20kbps,3s target

tcpblast version: FreeBSD + rzm 20001030 — periodt, that's the version string. 💜

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💀 BUGS 💀

Rafal says that he is a perfectly bad and careless maintainer :)

If You found any other bugs send it to him. (fr fr, he asked. 😭)

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🫶 AUTHORS 🫶

• Software: dfk@nic.eu.net (Daniel Karrenberg — acc. to FreeBSD version)
• Maintained by: Rafal Maszkowski <rzm@icm.edu.pl>
• Manual page: Artur R. Czechowski <arturcz@bofh.org.pl>, Oct 1999; rzm, Oct 2000

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and that's the whole page bestie, you ate it 🎀 this one came to you from the 3rd Berkeley Distribution, riding along with perl 5.005, patch 03, in section tcpblast(8) — iconic, no notes, byeee 💖✨🌸