NAME

sshping - measure character-echo latency and bandwidth for an interactive ssh session

SYNOPSIS

sshping [options] [user@]addr[:port]

DESCRIPTION

sshping is an SSH-based ping-like utility that measures interactive character echo latency and file transfer upload/download throughput. It's pronounced "shipping".

PARAMETERS

user Username for the login to the remote system. If omitted, it defaults to the current username on the local system.

addr IP name or address of the target system.

port tcp port number for the ssh daemon on the target system. This must be a number, service names like "ssh" are not supported. Default is 22.

OPTIONS

Short and long forms of options take the same arguments as shown.

-b, --bindaddr IP Bind to this source address

-c, --count NCHARS Number of characters to echo, default 1000

-d, --delimited Use delmiters in big numbers, eg 1,234,567

-e, --echocmd CMD Use CMD for echo command; default: cat > /dev/null For the character echo test, this command is issued to the remote system (sshping adds the newline) so that anything "typed" is echoed back.

-h, --help Print usage and exit

-i, --identity FILE Identity file, ie ssh private keyfile

-p, --password PWD Use password PWD (can be seen, use with care)

-r, --runtests e|s Run these tests e=echo s=speed; default es=both

-s, --size MB For transfer speed test (the scp test), send/receive MB megabytes; default=8 MB

-t, --time SECS Time limit for echo test. We'll stop the test soon after this number of seconds, or the --couont number of characters, whichever comes first. Timing starts after the ssh login and shell creation.

-v, --verbose Show more output, use twice for lots: -vv

-z, --remote FILE Path and name of a remote file that we can write to, for the upload test; and that we will read back, for the download test. The default is to create the 1MB dummy file /tmp/sshping-PID.tmp and repreatedly transfer that file --size times.

OUTPUT FIELDS

Connection

ssh-Login-Time Time in nanoseconds to establish the tcp network connection, authenticate, and form the ssh session, then start an ssh channel, launch a remote shell, login to the remote system and read back any logon banners.

    If an interactive password is needed to login, the time to supply 
    the password is included as well - so type fast!

Character Echo Tests

The character echo test issues a single byte to the remote system, then waits for it to be echoed back. It checks that the returned character is correct, then notes the wallclock time elapsed for the round-trip. This is repeated with a different character until either the test time limit is expired or the character count limit is reached.

Since only a subset of the printable ASCII character set is used, bytes == characters.

Minimum-Latency Fastest (lowest) round-trip time for a character echo, in nanoseconds.

Median-Latency The median round-trip time for a character echo. The median is not the same as the average; think of this as the "typical" latency. You probably want this number when you think average.

Average-Latency The average (mean) round-trip time for a character echo, in nanoseconds.

Average-Deviation The standard deviation on the average latency. It quantifies how varied the latency is for each character's echo. A lower number indicates a tighter grouping of latencies, a higher number indicates more variation in the latencies. "One" standard deviation is the average plus or minus this amount.

Maximum-Latency The slowest (highest) round-trip time for a character echo, in nanoseconds.

Echo-Count The number of bytes echoed during the test.

Transfer Speed Test

The file transfer speed test measures the upload and download throughput rate, in bytes per second (Bps), using the scp subsystem. This is the subsystem typically used when copying files over ssh.

For the upload test, a random 1MB file is copied to the target system ("uploads" it), measuring the time required for the transfer. The file is repeatedly copied to get transfer sizes greater than 1MB as given by --size. By default the target file is /tmp/sshping-PID.tmp but this can be changed with --remote.

For the download test, the file just-uploaded is copied down repeatedly, 1MB at a time, as-if it were separate files to simulate downloading multiple files. The --size value again is used to determine the number of copies pulled.

Upload-Size Number of bytes uploaded during the test.

Upload-Rate Throughput speed for the upload transfer, in Bytes/second.

Download-Size Number of bytes downloaded during the test.

Download-Rate Throughput speed for the download transfer, in Bytes/second.

EXAMPLES

    # bin/sshping -d cheyenne.example.com
    ssh-Login-Time:    1,733,748,227 nsec
    Minimum-Latency:         847,107 nsec
    Median-Latency:          996,029 nsec
    Average-Latency:         992,186 nsec
    Average-Deviation:        67,079 nsec
    Maximum-Latency:       1,289,470 nsec
    Echo-Count:                1,000 Bytes
    Upload-Size:           8,000,000 Bytes
    Upload-Rate:           4,732,718 Bytes/second
    Download-Size:         8,000,000 Bytes
    Download-Rate:         3,781,725 Bytes/second

AUTHOR

Written by Uncle Spook. https://github.com/spook/sshping

LICENSE

MIT License

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.