echoping/SRC/echoping.1

.\" $Id$

.TH echoping 1 "November 22, 1996" "ECHOPING" "echoping"

.SH NAME
echoping \- tests a remote host with TCP or UDP

.SH SYNOPSIS
.B echoping
.RI [ -vudcr ]
.RI [ -s\ number ]
.RI [ -n\ number ]
.RI [ -w\ number ]
.RI [ -t\ number ]
.RI [ -h\ URL ]
.RI [ -i\ URL ]
.B hostname
[:port]

.SH DESCRIPTION 
.LP
.B 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). 
.LP
.B echoping 
simply shows the elapsed time, including the time to set up the TCP 
connection and to transfer the data. Therefore, it is unsuitable 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.

.SH ARGUMENT
.IP hostname[:port]
Name of the server to test. For HTTP, you can specify a port number.

.SH OPTIONS
.IP -v
Verbose
.IP -s\ nnn
Size of the data to send. Large values can produce strange results with
some echo servers.
.IP -n\ nnn
Numbers of repeated tests. With this option, you have also the minimum, maximum, average and median
time. The median is the value such that half of the measures are under it
and the other half is above. When you measure highly variables values, like
it is often the case on the whole Internet, median is better than average
to avoid  "extreme" values.
.IP -w\ nnn
Number of seconds to wait between two tests (default is one)
.IP -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).
.IP -u
Use UDP instead of TCP
.IP -d
Use the "discard" service instead of echo
.IP -c
Use the "chargen" service instead of echo
.IP -h\ url
Use the HTTP protocol (instead of echo) for the given URL. The URL has to
be a relative one (for instance '/' or '/pics/foobar.gif') because HTTP 1.0
servers will not understand a request for an absolute URL.
.IP -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.
.IP -r
Use T/TCP (if it has been compiled with it). See the INSTALL file for details.
.IP -f\ character
Fill the packet with this character (default is random filling)

.SH EXAMPLES
.IP echoping\ \-v\ foobar.whoops.org
Tests the remote machine with TCP echo (one test).
.IP echoping\ \-n\ 5\ \-w\ 10\ foobar.whoops.org
Tests the remote machine with TCP echo (five tests, every ten seconds).
.IP echoping\ \-h\ /\ foobar.whoops.org
Tests the remote Web server and asks its home page. Note you don't
indicate the whole URL.
.IP echoping\ \-h\ http://www.whoops.org/\ cache.whoops.org:3128
Tests the remote Web proxy-cache and asks a Web page. Note that you must
indicate the whole URL.

.SH BUGS
UDP isn't really useable with large packets because of sockets 
limitations and the lack of workaround code.

ICP support is far from perfect, specially on the Alpha or when
something goes wrong (filtering for instance).

If a Web page is empty, 
.B echoping
will display meaningless messages.

Timeouts on T/TCP connections are a bit experimental. 

Since
.B echoping
writes everything to the server, then begins to read the reply, some echo 
servers
will timeout if you send very long messages, because they expect you to 
start to read right now.

.SH SEE ALSO
See the README for information about other network measurements programs.

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