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Summary



This article describes how to use testperf to test network connections.

Step By Step



The following procedure describes how to run the testperf utility from SOURCE_NODE to TARGET_NODE, where the hostname of the machines is also SOURCE_NODE and TARGET_NODE.

1. Start the DPX command prompt on the SOURCE_NODE, from the task bar by navigating to Start > All Programs > Catalogic DPX > DPX Command Prompt.( right click run as administrator)

2. Issue the cd ..\bin command to navigate to the DPX bin directory.

3. Start regedit and navigate to this location:

HKLM\Software\Syncsort\BackupExpress\SOURCE_NODE\0

4. Copy the value data from the key SSICMAPI on the right.

5. In the DPX command prompt, use the system set command to set SSICMAPI. This ensures that all socket parameters are used normally during backup apply to the testperf tool as well.

  • NOTE: Check the SSICMAPI after setting it, by issuing a set command from the command prompt, which will iterate through all environment variables. This ensures that what has been typed is now part of the shell being run by looking for the SSICMAPI variable.

6. Run the testperf tool from this DPX bin directory in the DPX Command Shell. The tool has 3 variables:

  • NUM_PACKETS - The number of packets that you want to transfer.
  • NUM_BYTES - The size of the packets that you will be transferring in bytes.
  • TARGET_NODE - The destination that you want to transfer the data to, which must be have DPX installed, and in this case will be.

7. Use the following command to run the tool:

 testperf send NUM_PACKETSNUM_BYTES -p -v -r -u -s TARGET_NODE

Start with a small number of packets and use 65535 for the packet byte size. By multiplying NUM_PACKETS * NUM_BYTES, the length of this operation can be determined. Starting with a thousand packets should transfer fairly quickly since it translates to 64 MB.

8. Analyze the output as follows:

  • There are 10% updates to the tool, designated in the output as PCT(<value>), where <value> is the percentage of data transferred
  • The SECS(<value>) field indicates how many seconds the tool has taken thus far.
  • The SIZ(<value>) field should be the packet size, equal to NUM_BYTES.
  • The KB(<value>) field is the estimated transfer rate in KB/s for that update interval. NOTE: If your TARGET_NODE is NetWare, you'll need to close the screen on the TARGET_NODE for testperf by typing any key when its finished. It doesn't close automatically and you can't transfer again until it's closed.

9. If the test requires a sustained transfer for a great deal of data, let this sit and watch for errors. The tool automatically generates a log, which can be found in the DPX logs folder named according to the following convention:

<Process ID of the testperf.exe your running, converted to hex and right aligned to 8 characters>--net(<IP address of SOURCE_NODE>.log

This log is a network error recovery log which records broken connections. For example, if testperf.exe has a process ID of 5520 (shown in taskmgr), the network error recovery log will be.

00001590--net(10.228.249.33).log