Averaging output of dstat

Question

I need to average upload and download speed using dstat -n. How can I add all the received and sent data sizes that appear after dstat -n, so that I can add them and find average upload and download speed over some period of time ?

Answer 1

As no one answered,I have figured it out. Here is how to do it. Let's say we need to average it for "2 min(120 sec)". First write it to a file named stat.txt.Refresh every second fro 120 times.

   dstat -n 1 120 >> stat.txt

Add the columns of stat.txt

   awk -F" " '{t1=t1+$1;t2=t2+$2}END{t1=t1/120;t2=t2/120;print t1"\t"t2}' stat.txt

Remove stat.txt

   rm stat.txt

We can make a script too from these commands.

Answer 2

It seems that dstat is a renamed/hacked version of the sysstat commands, and those will give you the measured traffic, not bandwidth ("speed"). To get that (and that will depend on the target system's load, the path to get there, ...), use something like curl(1), which will tell you afterwards what the average speed was. Also, most home installations are asymmetric, your upload bandwidth is a fraction of the download one.

Also consider that raw bandwith isn't enough, latency is critical for interactive applications (particularly games).

Perhaps a look at the bufferbloat phenomenon is also in order.