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lwIP iPerf benchmark

examples/networking/misc/lwiperf/README.md

2026.10-devel3.2 KB
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lwIP iPerf benchmark

This application exposes the lwIP iPerf server and client functionality to perform network throughput benchmarks between a node and another host.

Note: this example needs iPerf version 2 to work, not iPerf version 3. It currently only supports TCP.

Building

The default configuration compiles for the native target with only IPv6 support enabled.

IPv4 support can be enabled simultaneously by providing the LWIP_IPV4 flag, e.g. make LWIP_IPV4=1. However, when starting a server, it will only listen on the IPv4 address.

Refer to the Makefile for more details.

Usage

First make sure that the network interface is properly configured, and has an address. Then, to interact with the lwIP iPerf app, the shell exposes three commands:

  • abort - stop the currently running server or client
  • client <host> - start an iPerf client, connecting to the specified host
  • server - start an iPerf server

The server and client will run in the background.

Demonstration

This is a demonstration of the client running on a node, connecting to a server running on the host.

When testing this on a native target, refer to the examples/networking/misc/lwip_ipv4 instructions on how to set-up a local network.

First, check if the network interface is up and has an address. This can be done with the ifconfig command:

> ifconfig
Iface ET0 HWaddr: d2:16:6c:09:78:35 Link: up State: up
        Link type: wired
        inet6 addr: fe80:0:0:0:d016:6cff:fe09:7835 scope: link state: valid preferred

When using IPv4 without DHCP (the default), the address can be configured manually. For example:

> ifconfig add ET0 192.168.100.11/24

> ifconfig
Iface ET0 HWaddr: d2:16:6c:09:78:35 Link: up State: up
        Link type: wired
        inet addr: 192.168.100.11 mask: 255.255.255.0 gw: 0.0.0.0

On the host, start an iPerf server (-V is for IPv6):

$ iperf -V -s

Find the host IPv6 address (this will be machine-specific):

$ ip addr
...
3: tapbr0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 0a:04:9b:b4:23:de brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 192.168.100.100/24 scope global tapbr0
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 fe80::804:9bff:feb4:23de/64 scope link proto kernel_ll
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
...

Finally, run the client on the node, connecting to the host:

> client fe80::804:9bff:feb4:23de
TCP client connecting to fe80::804:9bff:feb4:23de port 5001

The node will connect to the server and print a report afterwards:

--- Results ---
Status      : TCP client done
Remote      : FE80::804:9BFF:FEB4:23DE:5001
Transferred : 309149816 bytes
Duration    : 10000 ms
Bandwidth   : 247312 kbit/s
--------------

The host output will look as follows:

------------------------------------------------------------
Server listening on TCP port 5001
TCP window size:  128 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[  1] local fe80::804:9bff:feb4:23de port 5001 connected with fe80::d016:6cff:fe09:7835 port 49153
[ ID] Interval       Transfer     Bandwidth
[  1] 0.0000-9.9988 sec   295 MBytes   247 Mbits/sec