Speed Tests

Ookla speed tests are used on our VPSs via their cli tool. The first two are from the old Virmach ones, the third is recent from the first Ethernetservers reseller account.

Test output is presented in the console, and a url is given for a shareable page. Adding .png to the url will give an image to share. With some installations, it doesn’t by default provide a url; you can use --share and it will give you a .png link. Removing the .png from the link will give the page instead. Bizzarre.

update 2025-04: Now you have to use –secure as well because http now gives a 403 forbidden.

Installation.

The cli tool link above has instructions for different OSes — for Ubuntu: (now in the repos)

sudo apt update
sudo apt ugrade
sudo apt-get install curl
curl -s https://packagecloud.io/install/repositories/ookla/speedtest-cli/script.deb.sh | sudo bash
sudo apt-get install speedtest-cli

Then run speedtest. Use --share – It will give the data and also a link to the speedtest.net page showing most of that info. Use man speedtest for more, I am sure there were ways to get it to do regular tests and keep them on a page. Maybe it was using cron or something. More research is needed!

Manual Installation

Sometimes the easy install fails; even on a supported version, it can still say:

andy@satoshihost-oc2:/home/ubuntu$ curl -s https://install.speedtest.net/app/cli/install.deb.sh | sudo bash
This distribution version is not currently supported via package management, please use the direct download builds per architecture found at https://www.speedtest.net/apps/cli

Manual installation can be done as outlined here.