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echoping(1)			   echoping			   echoping(1)

NAME
       echoping	- tests	a remote host with TCP or UDP

SYNOPSIS
       echoping	 [-4]  [-6] [-v] [-V] [-ffill] [-ttimeout] [-c]	[-d] [-u] [-T]
       [-ssize]	[-nnumber] [-wdelay] [-hurl-or-path] [-R] [-iurl] [-ppriority]
       [-Ptos] [-C] [-S] [-A] [-a] [-mplugin]  hostname	 [:port]  [plugin  op-
       tions...]

DESCRIPTION
       echoping	is a small program to test (approximatively) performances of a
       remote Internet host by sending it TCP "echo" packets. It can use other
       protocols  as  well  (HTTP  -  which  makes  it a good tool to test Web
       servers,	UDP "echo", etc).

       echoping	simply shows the elapsed time, including the time  to  set  up
       the  TCP	 connection and	to transfer the	data. Therefore, it is unsuit-
       able to physical	line raw throughput measures (unlike bing  or  treno).
       On  the other end, the action it	performs are close from, for instance,
       a HTTP request and it is	meaningful to use it  (carefully)  to  measure
       Web performances.

ARGUMENT
       hostname[:port]
	      Name (or address)	of the server to test. For HTTP, you can spec-
	      ify  a port number. For HTTP and IPv6, you can use RFC 3986 syn-
	      tax (you will probably need to  escape  the  brackets  from  the
	      shell). The name can be an IDN (Unicode domain name).

OPTIONS
       -v     Verbose

       -V     Displays	the  compiled-in configuration of echoping. Useful for
	      bug reports.

       -s nnn Size of the data to send.	Large values can produce  strange  re-
	      sults with some echo servers.

       -n nnn Numbers  of  repeated tests. With	this option, you have also the
	      minimum, maximum,	average	and median time, as well as the	 stan-
	      dard  deviation.	The  median is the value such that half	of the
	      measures are under it and	the other half is above. When you mea-
	      sure highly variables values, like it is often the case  on  the
	      whole Internet, median is	better than average to avoid "extreme"
	      values.  You  can	check the "value" of the average by looking at
	      the standard deviation: very roughly, if the standard  deviation
	      is  more than the	half of	the average, the average does not mean
	      anything.	(See a book about statistics for the details: the  re-
	      ality is far more	complicated.)

       -w nnn Number of	seconds	to wait	between	two tests (default is one). On
	      systems  which  have  usleep(), you can write it as a fractional
	      number, such as 3.14. Otherwise, use integers.

       -t nnn Number of	seconds	to wait	a reply	before	giving	up.  For  TCP,
	      this  is	the maximum number of seconds for the whole connection
	      (setup and data exchange).

       -u     Use UDP instead of TCP

       -T     Use SCTP instead of TCP

       -d     Use the "discard"	service	instead	of echo

       -c     Use the "chargen"	service	instead	of echo

       -h url-or-path
	      Use the HTTP protocol (instead of	echo) for the  given  URL.  If
	      the hostname is the Web server, the argument has to be a path, a
	      relative	URL  (for  instance '/'	or '/pics/foobar.gif').	If the
	      hostname is a proxy/cache	like Squid, the	argument has to	be  an
	      absolute URL.

       -R     Accept  HTTP status codes	3xx (redirections) as normal responses
	      (the default is to regard	them as	errors)

       -i url Use the ICP protocol (instead of echo) for the  given  URL.  The
	      URL  has to be an	absolute one. This is mostly for testing Squid
	      Web proxy/caches.

       -A     Force the	proxy (if you use one) to ignore the cache

       -a     Force the	proxy (if you use one) to  revalidate  data  with  the
	      original server

       -C     Use the SSL/TLS (cryptography) protocol. For HTTP	tests only.

       -S     Use the SMTP protocol (instead of	echo) for the given server.

       -4     Use only IPv4 (even if the target	machine	has an IPv6 address)

       -6     Use only IPv6 (even if the target	machine	has an IPv4 address)

       -f character
	      Fill the packet with this	character (default is random filling)

       -D     Tries  to	 display actual	data transfer duration only, not total
	      time

       -N n   Displays an average which	excludes values	("outliers") which are
	      further than +/- N*standard deviation

       -p n   Send packets with	the socket priority to	the  integer  n.   The
	      mapping  of  the	socket priority	into a network layer or	a link
	      layer priority depends upon the network protocol and link	proto-
	      col in use.  For more details see	SO_PRIORITY in socket(7).

       -P n   Set the IP type of service octet in the transmitted  packets  to
	      the least	significant eight bits of the integer n.  See ip(7) or
	      ip(4)  (depending	 on  your Unix). /usr/include/netinet/ip.h may
	      contain interesting constants for	setting	Type Of	Service.

       -m plugin
	      Load the given plugin. The plugin	is first searched in the  nor-
	      mal  library  directories	 (see  ld.so(8)	 )  then  in  /usr/lo-
	      cal/lib/echoping.	You can	type ls	in /usr/local/lib/echoping  to
	      get  an  idea  of	the available plugins. The documentation for a
	      given plugin is in  echoping_PLUGINNAME(1)  The  plugin-specific
	      options appear after the hostname.

EXAMPLES
       echoping	-v foobar.example.com
	      Tests the	remote machine with TCP	echo (one test).

       echoping	-n 5 -w	10 foobar.example.com
	      Tests  the  remote  machine with TCP echo	(five tests, every ten
	      seconds).

       echoping	-h / foobar.example.com
	      Tests the	remote Web server and asks its	home  page.  Note  you
	      don't indicate the whole URL.

       echoping	-h http://www.example.com/ cache.example.com:3128
	      Tests  the remote	Web proxy-cache	and asks a Web page. Note that
	      you must indicate	the whole URL.

       echoping	-n 3 -m	whois foobar.example.com -d tao.example.org
	      Loads the	whois plugin and query	the  host  foobar.example.com.
	      "-d tao.example.org" are options specific	to the whois plugin.

       echoping	-u -P 0xa0 foobar.example.com
	      Sends several UDP	Echo packets with an IP	Precedence of 5.

IP TYPE	OF SERVICE OCTET
       The IP packet header contains 8 bits named the "type of service octet".
       The  value  of the octet	is set with the	-P option.  The	effects	of the
       octet are defined differently in	RFC791 Internet	Protocol  and  RFC2474
       Definition  of the Differentiated Services Field	(DS Field) in the IPv4
       and IPv6	Headers.

       RFC791 defines Precedence which has ascending priorities	0  through  to
       7,  and	the  bits Delay, Throughput, Reliability, and Cost which indi-
       cates the application's preference for the properties of	 the  packet's
       path  through the network.  Precedence is in the	most significant three
       bits of the type	of service octet, followed in  decending  significance
       order  by  the  D,  T, R	and C bits.  The least significant bit must be
       zero.  Only one of the D, T, R or C bits	may be set.

       RFC2474 defines the Distributed Services	Code  Point,  or  DSCP.	  This
       acts  as	a selector between 64 possible behaviours that the network can
       apply to	the packet.  The DSCP is in the	most significant six  bits  of
       the type	of service octet.  The remaining least significant two bits of
       the octet must be zero.

       The  numeric arguments to -p and	-P can be in decimal (such as 11), oc-
       tal (such as 013) or hexadecimal	(such as 0x0b).	  So  padding  decimal
       arguments with leading zeros will change	the value read.

       You may need to be superuser to set some	-p or -P values	(precedence on
       Linux, for instance).

BUGS
       See    SourceForge    bug    tracking	system	  at   <http://source-
       forge.net/tracker/?group_id=4581&atid=104581>.

SEE ALSO
       See the README for information about other  network  measurements  pro-
       grams.

FILES
       /usr/local/lib/echoping
	   Plugins directory

AUTHOR
       Stephane	Bortzmeyer <bortz@users.sourceforge.net>

ECHOPING		       November	22, 1996		   echoping(1)

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