![]() It took me several days to get these tools running on Windows 10 and I wanted to pass on my learning. Aiden’s python script speedtest2influx.py had an additional advantage in that it was set up to run continuously at regular intervals. It was targeted for Linux, but I felt that I could reuse the InfluxDB and Grafana infrastructure I had already installed on the Windows 10 system. I found a python solution in this project by Aiden Gilmartin. Unfortunately, my Python skills were not up to changing Simon Hearn’s python code to use the Ookla speedtest, so I searched for an alternative. The newer Ookla version worked much more reliably. The original speedtest-cli had a number of issues reporting reliable network speeds. Doing more digging I found that there are two speedtest command line interface (cli) implementations. I replicated Simon’s monitoring solution on the Windows 10 machine, but quickly noticed that the network bandwidth had the same slow and inconsistent results I saw on the Raspberry Pi. A quick search showed that InfluxDB, Grafana, and Python were all available for Windows 10. Since I changed my personal desktop to a Mac four years ago, this would be a good opportunity to brush up on my Windows 10 skills. The “Zoom” machine is running 64bit Windows 10 Home and has Core I5 processors with 8gb of RAM, so I thought it would be able to handle the monitoring workload. I have a newish Dell laptop I purchased last year dedicated to running family Zoom meetings from my kitchen. I started looking around for another system in my house that was always on and had enough processing power to support the network monitoring. I (incorrectly) hypothesized that the Raspberry Pi didn’t have enough processing capacity but that turned out not to be the cause of the discrepancy. Unfortunately, the bandwidth results I got were significantly lower and inconsistent compared to the results I was seeing from Ookla speedtest on my desktop. But I went ahead and installed the configuration on the Raspberry Pi. I was concerned about the additional load of running speedtest, InfluxDB, and Grafana on the Pi. The first issue is that I only have one Raspberry Pi currently in “production” use, and that use is running pihole. This blog gave me a lot of information on the potential solution, but I had some issues with implementing it. I quickly found this blog by Simon Hearne about running speedtest on a Raspberry Pi and capturing the results in InfluxDB. ![]() Searching for a solution First attempt – Raspberry Pi I needed to find a way to monitor my network speed on an ongoing basis. Eventually the problem was resolved by swapping out my ancient cable modem, but I wanted to make sure that I was aware of network problems when they started occurring. What was worse is that the problem was intermittent so even when I thought it was “fixed” the problem reoccurred. The problem is, I didn’t really have any idea when my network bandwidth started to deteriorate. ![]() After passing through the VRU gauntlet (don’t get me started!) I finally got to a support rep that asked me that question. When that didn’t help, I gritted my teeth and called support at Spectrum Cable. So when I noticed my network speed slowing to a crawl, I immediately did a few diagnostic tasks like rebooting my cable modem. Like everybody else, I am conducting almost all my activities over the Internet these days. This was one of the first questions the cable support rep asked me when I called to report slow Internet speeds. ![]()
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