netspeed.sh : check download speed rate via command line | Linux bash script

netspeed.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash
#              bash 4.1.5(1)     Linux Ubuntu 10.04               Date : 2013-07-11
#
# _______________|  netspeed : check download speed via command line.
#
#           Usage:  netspeed [tokyo, london, usw, use, east, west, URL]
#                                            ^default U.S. west coast.
#                            [ -speed_KB/sec ]
#                              ^negation activates the Mbps converter.
#
#                            First try it out without any arguments.
#                                            
#    Dependencies:  wget 
#                   (rate displayed in Kilobytes per second, 
#                    whereas speed tests usually adopt Megabits.)
#
#   Example units:  Download Speed: 659 kbps     (82.4 KB/sec transfer rate)
#                     Upload Speed: 317 kbps     (39.6 KB/sec transfer rate)
#                                       kb=kilobits    KB=Kilobytes
#                   So  0.007813 Mb =    8 kilobits =   1 Kilobyte
#                   since      1 Mb = 1024 kilobits = 128 Kilobytes
#
#           Units:  b stands for bit and B stands for byte. In the context of 
#                   data rate units, one byte refers to 8 bits. For example, 
#                   when a 1 Mbps connection is advertised, it usually means 
#                   that the maximum achievable download bandwidth is 
#                   1  megabit/s (million bits per second), which is actually 
#                   0.125   MB/s (megabyte per second), or about 
#                   0.1192 MiB/s (mebibyte per second). 
#                   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbit/s#megabit_per_second


#  CHANGE LOG  get LATEST version from https://bitbucket.org/rsvp/gists/src
#
#  2013-07-11  Modify linode.com domains which have test files, 
#                 see https://www.linode.com/speedtest/
#  2011-10-09  Add rate conversion to Mbps using negated first argument.
#  2011-10-08  Add URL as possible arg. Clarify rate units.
#                 Public as gist to https://gist.github.com/1272488
#  2011-10-07  First version based on wget, though curl also works:
#                 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/426272
#                 Command line alternative to http://www.speedtest.net

#           _____ Prelims
set -u
#   ^ unbound (i.e. unassigned) variables shall be errors.
set -e
#   ^ error checking :: Highly Recommended (caveat:  you can't check $? later).  
#
# _______________     ::  BEGIN  Script ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

site=${1:-'usw'}


case $site in 
     'london') test='http://speedtest.london.linode.com/100MB-london.bin'    ;;
     'tokyo')  test='http://speedtest.tokyo.linode.com/100MB-tokyo.bin'      ;;
     'usw')    test='http://speedtest.fremont.linode.com/100MB-fremont.bin'  ;;
               #  US West:  Fremont, California
     'use')    test='http://speedtest.newark.linode.com/100MB-newark.bin'    ;;
               #  US East:  Newark, New Jersey
     'east')   test='http://speedtest.wdc01.softlayer.com/downloads/test500.zip'                 ;;
               #  US East:  Washington, D.C.
     'west')   test='http://speedtest.sjc01.softlayer.com/speedtest/speedtest/random500x500.jpg' ;;
               #  US West:  San Jose, California
     *)        test=$1  ;;
               #  valid URL assumed, else wget will give any error message.
esac
     #  Sources:
     #  2013-07-11  Linode renames sub-domains for testing.
     #  2011-10-07  http://www.linode.com/speedtest/      for file URL.
     #              http://speedtest.wdc01.softlayer.com  for actual testing.



if [ $test = -${test#-} ] ; then
     #     ^check for negative sign in the first argument.
     echo "`awk "BEGIN { print ($test * -0.007813) }"` Mbps"
     #      awk as nice floating-point calculator!
else
     echo ' ::  Rate in Kilobytes/sec; industry usually adopts megabits/sec:       '
     echo ' ::        1 Kilobytes/sec (K/s)   =       0.007813 megabits/sec (Mbps).'
     echo ' ::        To CONVERT, use negated rate as first argument to netspeed.  '
     echo ' ::  [Terminate netspeed by control-C]     [ cf. http://speedtest.net ] '
     echo ' ::  '
     trap 'echo -e "\n\n ::  Exit successful on designed interrupt."; exit 0' SIGINT
     #      MAIN
     wget  --output-document=/dev/null  $test 
fi

#       If --output-file for wget was used to log results...
#
#  --2011-10-07 21:38:27--  
#  Resolving speedtest.sjc01.softlayer.com... 50.23.64.58
#  Connecting to speedtest.sjc01.softlayer.com|50.23.64.58|:80... connected.
#  HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
#  Length: 505544 (494K) [image/jpeg]
#  Saving to: `/dev/null'
#  
#       0K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 10% 80.9K 5s
#      50K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 20% 78.5K 5s
#     100K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 30% 80.8K 4s
#     150K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 40% 78.8K 4s
#     200K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 50% 80.8K 3s
#     250K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 60% 78.5K 2s
#     300K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 70% 78.8K 2s
#     350K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 81% 80.8K 1s
#     400K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 91% 78.5K 1s
#     450K .......... .......... .......... .......... ...       100% 81.9K=6.2s
#  
#  2011-10-07 21:38:33 (79.8 KB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [505544/505544]


exit 0
# _______________ EOS ::  END of Script ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


#  #  Alternative to wget...
#  curl -o /dev/null  $test
#  #  curl is less verbose than wget. Speed is displayed as bytes per second:
#  #
#  #    % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
#  #                                   Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
#  #    0  500M    0 4931k    0     0  80993      0  1:47:53  0:01:02  1:46:51 81520


#  vim: set fileencoding=utf-8 ff=unix tw=78 ai syn=sh :

Yes, the URLs don't work now.

@Alanaktion -- Amended to gist v2013-07-11 Linode renames sub-domains for testing.

Also check my next comment for a new alternative script which has more features, and seems more accurate. Let me know how you like both. Thanks.

Wrote an improved script in Bash which gives download as well as upload speeds, plus ping -- esp. suitable for log file: https://github.com/rsvp/speedtest-linux -- check it out.

SUMMARY

The gist above, netspeed.sh, has been deprecated.

Good news

Work has shifted to using the infrastructure of speedtest.net and fast.com --
again made easily accessible by Bash shell scripts for all POSIX and Linux systems.
Please visit https://git.io/speed to obtain the code. PR are welcomed!