Btest Server & Bandwidth Test Tools

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     RouterOS provides the BTest Server (Bandwidth Test Server) and the Bandwidth Test tool for preforming a variety of network tests. The server works in combination with the Bandwidth Test tool in RouterOS or in Windows. The focus will be on the RouterOS version of this, but a Windows version that can act as server or client is also available on the MikroTik Downloads page here. Here are some the ways that this tool can be used:

  • Testing bandwidth between any two points on your network
  • Identifying choke points in your network
  • Toubleshooting Layer 1 problems 
  • Verifying real-world network capacity
  • Generating TCP or UDP traffic for analysis and/ or troubleshooting such as:
    • Testing queues
    • Testing queue types
    • Testing policy based routing

Things to be aware of before starting:

  • The Bandwidth Test tool can be very resource intensive and allowing it to max out can adversely affect the performance of the network under test.
  • Running the bandwidth test on the same device that is being tested further reduces its ability to provide accurate results. This is not always a problem, but a router with a small CPU such as a mAP or a RB750 will not be powerful enough to provide accurate values for there own links. However, the values that are obtained can still be a strong indicator of link/ network performance.
  • TCP tests require acknowledgments (extra traffic that is part of the TCP protocol), so UDP tests will provide values closer to advertised specifications.
  • The Bandwidth Test tool can only use a single CPU/ CPU core regardless of which product it is. That will limit the max traffic that can be generated with a single router. Multiple routers can be used and their values manually added, but the server has the same limitation with the CPU.
  • The Bandwidth Test tool only reports the traffic that it is responsible for. Its useful, particularly in production networks, to watch the reported traffic for that given interface(s). Those values may be higher than what the testing tool is reporting.

 

BTest Server

      The BTest Server is turned on by default in all instances of RouterOS and must be present to use the Bandwidth Test tool.

 

BTest Server1

BTest Server2

 

Bandwidth Test Tool

     The Bandwidth Test tool is the client side of the bandwidth test.

 

BTest Server3

BTest Server4

BTest Server5

 

BT_UDP – Packet Capture File in .zip

BT_UDP_Random – Packet Capture File in .zip

BT_TCP – Packet Capture File in .zip

BT_TCP_Random – Packet Capture File in .zip

 

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial! If you have any questions or insights, please add a comment below.

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2 thoughts on “Btest Server & Bandwidth Test Tools”

  • Reply ↓
    Henry

    Maybe I’m missing something, but I haven’t found any way to get the bandwidth-test CLIENT to use ports other than 2000 if you need to set the server side to different ports. I’ve determined that changing the server settings on the client side doesn’t affect the client’s behavior, it just keeps trying to use 2000.

    • Reply ↓
      rickfrey1000 Post author

      I went back to double check it, but when I connected the client to a non-standard port, it negotiated the port automatically. I was using ROS 6.46.4 and tried multiple ports. Each time, the client auto negotiated without any trouble.