cmd:echoping

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Basic Info

Usage

To use it, simply:

% echoping machine.somewhere.org

Info

"echoping" is a small program to test (approximatively) performances of a remote host by sending it TCP "echo" (or other protocol) packets.

Features

Supports IPv6 as well as IPv4,
uses the protocols echo, discard, chargen or HTTP,
uses UDP instead of TCP for the protocols which accept it (like echo),
can repeat the test and display various measures about it,
can use T/TCP on systems which support it.

Source

http://echoping.sourceforge.net/ http://freshmeat.net/projects/echoping/ http://www.gnu.org/directory/All_Packages_in_Directory/echoping.html

Related Urls

RPM resource echoping
http://www.megaloman.com/~hany/RPM/echoping.html

SmokePing: ECHOPING PROBE
NAME. probes::EchoPing - an echoping(1) probe for SmokePing. OVERVIEW. … Can
also be used as a base class for other echoping(1) probes. SYNOPSYS. …
people.ee.ethz.ch/~oetiker/webtools/ smokeping/probes/echoping.en.html

echoping details

http://echoping.sourceforge.net/details.html

echo service

echoping assumes the remote host accepts such connections. Experience show that most Internet routers do and many hosts also. However, some Unices are not shipped with this service enabled and, anyway, the administrator is always free to close it (I think they shouldn't). echoping has therefore less chance to succeed than ping or bing. (On a typical Unix box, "echo" service is configured in /etc/inetd.conf but see the CERT advisory.)

What does echoping measure?

echoping simply shows the elapsed time, including the time to set up the TCP connection and to transfer the data (but excluding the time for the - possible - DNS call). Therefore, it is unsuitable to physical line raw throughput measures (unlike bing). On the other end, the action it performs are close from a HTTP request and it is meaningful to use it (carefully) to measure Web performances.

UDP and inetd

With UDP servers you can have surprises: the first test is quite often much slower since inetd has to launch the process. After that, the process stays a while so the next texts run faster.

A nice example

There are many, many traps when measuring something on the Internet. Just one example: 'echoping -w 0 -n 4 a-sunOS-machine' and you'll see the first test succeed in a very short time (if you are close from the machine) and all of the others take a much longer time (one second). With '-w 1' (wait one second between tests, the default), everything works fine: it seems the sockets on SunOS need time to recover :-)

Alternatives

To measure performances on the Internet you can also see

Unix

bing, a bandwidth measurement tool
ping, probably available with your system
traceroute, idem (otherwise, see LBL)
ttcp, the best measurement tool but it needs some control over the two machines (nothing to do with the T/TCP protocol)
treno (evaluates available bandwidth for TCP)
spray is a tool which I dont't know very well. It is available on some machines (Sun, OSF/1).
I've also heard of but never tried:
Netperf, a suite of Bandwidth Measuring programs from gnn@netcom.com These are several programs that measure bandwidth and jitter over several kinds of IPC links, including TCP and UDP.

MacOS

TCP Watcher, a very nice "swiss-army knife" tool, to test ping, DNS, echo. It includes an echo server. Available on Info-Mac in "comm/tcp".

MS-Windows

(I have little knowledge of that environment and I tested nothing.)

WSNUTIL. Seems to be an echo client and server.
echox32, an echo server
cfinger, an echo client and server

Windows-NT

echo and other services can (apparently) be provided within 'Simple TCP/IP Services' which can be enabled through the Network Control Panel

Web clients

You can ping or traceroute on the Web. See Freenix, fr.net (with Autonomous Systems handling) or Multiple Traceroute Gateway.

Use all of them with care, the result is not obvious to interpret.

And don't forget to read RFC 1470 ("Tools for Monitoring and Debugging TCP/IP Internets and Interconnected Devices"), specially its "Benchmark" section and the Richard Stevens' books (all of them), published by Addison-Wesley.