Debian Bug report logs - #447669
netspeed: reports wrong speeds

Reply or subscribe to this bug.

Toggle useless messages

Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: WireSpot <wirespot@gmail.com>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: netspeed: reports wrong speeds

Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2007 02:35:47 +0300

Package: netspeed
Version: 0.13-1+b1
Severity: important

netspeed reports larger speeds than normal. For instance, while using
Firefox to download a file, or apt to upgrade the system; the application
(Firefox or apt) would report for example 350 KB/sec, while netspeed would     
report 575 KB/sec.

I realise that there's a discrepancy between the data amount in application
terms and the data in raw interface terms. However, I also checked with
iptraf and while it also reports greater speeds than the applications, it is
only a minor increase: 370 KB/sec when the application reports 350.

The problem appears at any level of speed, not just large speeds. Examples:
application: 5, iptraf: 6, netspeed: 8.5
application: 10, iptraf: 11, netspeed: 20
application: 20, iptraf: 23, netspeed: 35
application: 50, iptraf: 55, netspeed: 85
application: 100, iptraf: 113, netspeed: 170

These are just examples, because the speed reported by netspeed also seems  
to fluctuate a lot, but generally it stays around 70% more than what the
application reports, while iptraf only adds about 10%.

The same applies to upload speeds.  

Changing the update interval does not fix the problem or improve it.


-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (990, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.22.1 (PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=en_US, LC_CTYPE=en_US (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968) (ignored: LC_ALL set to C)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages netspeed depends on:
ii  libart-2.0-2               2.3.19-3      Library of functions for 2D graphi
ii  libatk1.0-0                1.20.0-1      The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libbonobo2-0               2.20.0-1      Bonobo CORBA interfaces library
ii  libbonoboui2-0             2.20.0-1      The Bonobo UI library
ii  libc6                      2.6.1-6       GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libcairo2                  1.4.10-1      The Cairo 2D vector graphics libra
ii  libfontconfig1             2.4.2-1.4     generic font configuration library
ii  libgconf2-4                2.20.0-1      GNOME configuration database syste
ii  libglib2.0-0               2.14.2-1      The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgnome-keyring0          2.20.0-3      GNOME keyring services library
ii  libgnome2-0                2.20.1.1-1    The GNOME 2 library - runtime file
ii  libgnomecanvas2-0          2.20.1-1      A powerful object-oriented display
ii  libgnomeui-0               2.20.1.1-1    The GNOME 2 libraries (User Interf
ii  libgnomevfs2-0             1:2.20.0-3    GNOME Virtual File System (runtime
ii  libgtk2.0-0                2.12.1-1      The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libgtop2-7                 2.20.0-1      gtop system monitoring library
ii  libice6                    2:1.0.4-1     X11 Inter-Client Exchange library
ii  liborbit2                  1:2.14.7-0.1  libraries for ORBit2 - a CORBA ORB
ii  libpanel-applet2-0         2.20.0.1-3    library for GNOME Panel applets
ii  libpango1.0-0              1.18.2-2      Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  libpopt0                   1.10-3        lib for parsing cmdline parameters
ii  libsm6                     2:1.0.3-1+b1  X11 Session Management library
ii  libx11-6                   2:1.0.3-7     X11 client-side library
ii  libxcursor1                1:1.1.9-1     X cursor management library
ii  libxext6                   1:1.0.3-2     X11 miscellaneous extension librar
ii  libxfixes3                 1:4.0.3-2     X11 miscellaneous 'fixes' extensio
ii  libxi6                     2:1.1.3-1     X11 Input extension library
ii  libxinerama1               1:1.0.2-1     X11 Xinerama extension library
ii  libxml2                    2.6.30.dfsg-2 GNOME XML library
ii  libxrandr2                 2:1.2.2-1     X11 RandR extension library
ii  libxrender1                1:0.9.4-1     X Rendering Extension client libra

netspeed recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information

Message #10 received at 447669@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Loïc Minier <lool@dooz.org>

To: WireSpot <wirespot@gmail.com>, 447669@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#447669: netspeed: reports wrong speeds

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2008 21:18:58 +0200

        Hi,

On Tue, Oct 23, 2007, WireSpot wrote:
> netspeed reports larger speeds than normal. For instance, while using
> Firefox to download a file, or apt to upgrade the system; the application
> (Firefox or apt) would report for example 350 KB/sec, while netspeed would     
> report 575 KB/sec.
> 
> I realise that there's a discrepancy between the data amount in application
> terms and the data in raw interface terms. However, I also checked with
> iptraf and while it also reports greater speeds than the applications, it is
> only a minor increase: 370 KB/sec when the application reports 350.

 I believe netspeed relies on the interface byte counters which in the
 case of Ethernet will count Ethernet frames, even broadcast ones.  If
 you're on a busy LAN with Windows host, you'll typically experience a
 non-null amount of traffic.

 Could you try measuring traffic with wireshark and see whether
 netspeed's traffic matches the wireshark Ethernet counters?

   Thanks,
-- 
Loïc Minier

Message #17 received at 447669@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: WireSpot <wirespot@gmail.com>

To: "Loïc Minier" <lool@dooz.org>

Cc: 447669@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#447669: netspeed: reports wrong speeds

Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2008 23:17:47 +0300

On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 22:18, Loïc Minier <lool@dooz.org> wrote:
>  Could you try measuring traffic with wireshark and see whether
>  netspeed's traffic matches the wireshark Ethernet counters?

I'm afraid I'm not used to WireShark and I haven't been able to figure
out how to do that. Can you point me to some help?

Message #22 received at 447669@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Loïc Minier <lool@dooz.org>

To: WireSpot <wirespot@gmail.com>

Cc: 447669@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#447669: netspeed: reports wrong speeds

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:16:40 +0200

On Sun, Jul 06, 2008, WireSpot wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 22:18, Loïc Minier <lool@dooz.org> wrote:
> >  Could you try measuring traffic with wireshark and see whether
> >  netspeed's traffic matches the wireshark Ethernet counters?
> 
> I'm afraid I'm not used to WireShark and I haven't been able to figure
> out how to do that. Can you point me to some help?

 Install Wireshark, capture all data on your interface, stop capture,
 and see Statistics > Summary.

-- 
Loïc Minier

Send a report that this bug log contains spam.