Custom Speed Test Server

Skill level: Intermediate

Goal

To setup a custom speed test server and have your Accelerated 63xx-series cellular extender perform speed tests to it.

The Speed test command leverages the management tunnel established between the 63xx-series device and Accelerated View.  For details on the monthly data usage for this access, refer to the following article:

Data Usage Estimates

Setup

For this setup, you will need access to Accelerated View, and a 63xx-series cellular extender online and syncing with Accelerated View.  If you see the 63xx-series device listed as up (green status) in Accelerated View, you are good to go.

Details

Accelerated View utilizes the IPSec tunnel the 63xx-series device establishes to remote.accns.com to send remote commands to the device.  One of the available commands a user can run is the Perform Speed Test command.  This will trigger the 63xx-series device to perform a speed test to the speedtest server specified in its configuration settings.  The default speed test server is speedtest.accns.com.

Note: In order to minimize the speed test's impact on cellular data consumption, the results are an estimation of the available throughput of the device, and may not represent the full network speed available.

This article will detail setting up a separate speed test server that a 63xx-series cellular extender can use as an alternative to the default speed test server.

Speed Test server setup

The speed test server utilizes the nuttcp tool in Linux.  This setup was tested using nuttcp version 6.1.2 on an Ubuntu 16.04 server with 1GB of RAM and a 30GB hard drive.  The nuttcp tool used approximately 150kB of disk space, and consumed an average of 100MB of RAM.

Run the following command to install the nuttcp package.

sudo apt-get install nuttcp

Then start the nuttcp speed test server with the following command:

nuttcp -S

The 63xx-series device will need access to this server on UDP ports 5000 and 5001.  Please ensure proper firewalls are opened to allow access to the IP address of the speed test server and its respective ports.

Once the new speed test server is running, add the IP address to the 63xx-series device's configuration profile under Central management -> speedtest server and apply the configuration to the device.

To run a speed test, select the Perform Speed Test option under the Commands drop-down listed on the device's details page in Accelerated View.

The 63xx-series device will acknowledge the request to perform the speed test, and will send another event to Accelerated View once the speed test completes.  Clicking on the speed test results will display a window with the upload and downloads speeds observed in the test.