---
name: "speedometer"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "speedometer"
version: "2.9-0.2"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/speedometer"
---

# speedometer(1)

measure and display the rate of data across a network connection

## NAME

speedometer - measure and display the rate of data across a network connection

## SYNOPSIS

```
   speedometer [options] tap [[-c] tap] ...
```

## DESCRIPTION

Monitor network traffic or speed/progress of a file transfer. At least one tap option (**-f**, **-rx**, **-tx**) must be entered. Option **-c** starts a new column, otherwise taps are piled vertically.

Note: before you use the program, start generating traffic by transferring files in/out e.g. with [**scp**(1)](/scp/1.md) in the network you're measuring.

## OPTIONS

- **-b**

  Use old blocky display instead of smoothed display even when UTF-8 encoding is detected.

- **-f filename \[size\]**

  Display download speed with progress bar. This option must be used if directly following another file tap without an expected size specified.

- **-i interval**

  Interval in seconds. Examples: 5 or 0.25". Default is 1.

- **-p**

  Use plain-text display (one tap only).

- **-rx iface**

  Display bytes received on network interface.

- **-tx iface**

  Display bytes transmitted on network interface.

- **-z**

  Report zero size on files that don't exist instead of waiting for them to be created

EXAMPLES

How long it will take for my 38MB transfer to finish?

```
    speedometer favorite_episode.rm $(( 38 * 1024 * 1024 ))
```

How quickly is another transfer going?

```
    speedometer dl/big.avi
```

How fast is this LAN?

```
    host-a$ cat /dev/zero | nc -l -p 12345
    host-b$ nc host-a 12345 > /dev/null
    host-b$ speedometer -rx eth0
```

How fast is the upstream on this ADSL line?

```
    speedometer -tx ppp0
```

How fast can I write data to my filesystem? (with at least 1GB free)

```
    dd bs=1000000 count=1000 if=/dev/zero of=bigfile &
    speedometer bigfile
```

## ENVIRONMENT

None.

## FILES

None.

## SEE ALSO

[**htop**(1)](/htop/1.md) [**iotop**(1)](/iotop/1.md) [**scp**(1)](/scp/1.md) [**top**(1)](/top/1.md) **vmstat**(1)

## AUTHORS

Program was written by Ian Ward \<ian.ward@excess.org\>

This manual page was written by Jari Aalto \<jari.aalto@cante.net\>. Released under license GNU GPL version 2 or (at your option) any later version. For more information about license, visit \<http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html\>.