[netperf-talk] Measuring wifi throughput

[Rick Jones]

Ekki Plicht (DF4OR) wrote:
> Hi.
> 
> New to netperf I wonder if I can really use this tool to measure throughput of 
> link, in this case a wireless link.
> 
> I used netperf for some initial tests and got a mesured throughput of about 
> 2.7MBit/s. Not very exciting when looking at the 54Mbit/s link speed. But 
> over the same wifi link I have access to an ethernet webcam, and when looking 
> at that I get about 16 to 20MBit/s throughput (measured with the internal 
> tools of the wifi device).
> 
> Looking at this difference, I ask myself if netperf really is able to saturate 
> the link or not. Or what other explanation could there be for the large 
> difference?
> netserver is running on a relativly powerful machine, netperf on a slower 
> machine (P3, 700MHz) with little memory.
> 
> Any ideas?
> My ultimate goal is to fine tune the wifi link for best throughput.

Given that netperf has been used to saturate 10G Ethernet links, I suspect 
chances are good we can get it to saturate your 54 Mbit/s wireless link. 
Probably a matter of things like socket buffer settings and the like. So...

Not that it is 100% complete, but have you gone through the netperf manual yet?

http://www.netperf.org/svn/netperf2/trunk/doc/netperf.html  should be about as 
good a link as any for that.

On what platform are you running your tests - the OS and revision and such?

What netperf command lines have you tried thusfar?

happy benchmarking,

rick jones