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Version: current

Bandwidth Test

Sub-menu: /tool Packages required: system

The Bandwidth Tester can be used to measure the throughput to another MikroTik router (either wired or wireless) and thereby help to discover network "bottlenecks".

The TCP test uses the standard TCP protocol with acknowledgments and follows the TCP algorithm on how many packets to send according to latency, dropped packets, and other features in the TCP algorithm. Please review the TCP protocol for details on its internal speed settings and how to analyze its behavior. Statistics for throughput are calculated using the entire size of the TCP data stream. As acknowledgments are an internal working of TCP, their size and usage of the link are not included in the throughput statistics. Therefore, this statistic is not as reliable as the UDP statistic when estimating throughput.

The UDP tester sends 110% or more packets than are currently reported as received on the other side of the link. To see the maximum throughput of a link, the packet size should be set to the maximum MTU allowed by the links, which is usually 1500 bytes. There is no acknowledgment required by UDP; this implementation means that the closest approximation of the throughput can be seen.

warning

Bandwidth Test uses all available bandwidth and system resources, and may impact network usability. If you want to test real throughput of a router, you should run bandwidth test through the tested router not from, or to itself. To do this you need at least 3 routers connected in a chain: the Bandwidth Server, the router being tested and the Bandwidth Client.

note

If you use UDP protocol then Bandwidth Test counts IP header+UDP header+UDP data. If you use TCP then Bandwidth Test counts only TCP data (TCP header and IP header are not included).

Bandwidth Test Server​

Sub-menu: /tool/bandwidth-server
PropertyDescription
allocate-udp-ports-from (integer 1000..64000; Default: 2000)Beginning of UDP port range
authenticate (yes | no; Default: yes)Communicate only with authenticated clients
enabled (yes | no; Default: yes)Defines whether the bandwidth server is enabled or not
max-sessions (integer 1..1000; Default: 100)Maximal simultaneous test count

Example​

Bandwidth Server:

[admin@MikroTik] /tool/bandwidth-server> print                                  
                  enabled: yes                                                  
             authenticate: yes                                                  
  allocate-udp-ports-from: 2000                                                 
             max-sessions: 100                                                  
[admin@MikroTik] /tool/bandwidth-server>

Active sessions:

[admin@MikroTik] /tool/bandwidth-server/session> print
  # CLIENT          PROTOCOL DIRECTION USER
  0 35.35.35.1      udp      send      admin
  1 25.25.25.1      udp      send      admin
  2 36.36.36.1      udp      send      admin
[admin@MikroTik] /tool/bandwidth-server/session>

To enable the bandwidth-test server without client authentication:

[admin@MikroTik] /tool/bandwidth-server> set enabled=yes authenticate=no        
[admin@MikroTik] /tool/bandwidth-server> print                                  
                  enabled: yes                                                  
             authenticate: no                                                   
  allocate-udp-ports-from: 2000                                                 
             max-sessions: 100                                                  
[admin@MikroTik] /tool/bandwidth-server>

Bandwidth Test Client​

Sub-menu: /tool/bandwidth-test

PropertyDescription
address (IP address | IPv6 prefix[%interface]; Default:)IP address of host
direction (both | receive | transmit; Default:receive)
Direction of data flow
duration (time; Default:)Duration of the test
interval (time: 20ms..5s; Default:1s)Delay between reports (in seconds)
local-tx-speed (integer 0..18446744073709551615; Default: )Transfer test maximum speed (bits per second)
local-udp-tx-size (integer: 28..64000)Local transmit packet size in bytes
password (string; Default: "")Password for the remote user
protocol (udp | tcp; Default: udp)Protocol to use
random-data (yes | no; Default: no)If random-data is set to yes, the payload of the bandwidth test packets will have an incompressible random data stream so that links that use data compression will not distort the results (this is CPU intensive and random-data should be set to no for low-speed CPUs)
remote-tx-speed (integer 0..18446744073709551615; Default: )Receive test maximum speed (bits per second)
remote-udp-tx-size (integer: 28..64000)Remote transmit packet size in bytes
connection-count (integer 1..255; Default:)Number of TCP connections to use
user (string; Default: "")Remote user

Example​

To run a 15-second-long bandwidth-test to the 10.0.0.32 host sending and receiving 1000-byte UDP packets and using username admin to connect:

[admin@MikroTik] /tool> bandwidth-test 10.0.0.32 duration=15s \
\... direction=both local-udp-tx-size=1000 protocol=udp \
\... remote-udp-tx-size=1000 user=admin
                status: done testing
              duration: 15s
            tx-current: 272.8Mbps
  tx-10-second-average: 200.3Mbps
      tx-total-average: 139.5Mbps
            rx-current: 169.6Mbps
  rx-10-second-average: 164.8Mbps
      rx-total-average: 117.0Mbps
          lost-packets: 373
           random-data: no
             direction: both
               tx-size: 1000
               rx-size: 1000
[admin@MikroTik] /tool>
[admin@MikroTik] > /tool/bandwidth-test fe80::34:23ff:fe6a:570c%local
                status: running
              duration: 5s
            rx-current: 23.9Mbps
  rx-10-second-average: 15.1Mbps
      rx-total-average: 15.1Mbps
          lost-packets: 0
           random-data: no
             direction: receive
               rx-size: 1500