Unable to start netperf server

Solution 1:

While netserver's behavior seems to be somewhat unusual on Ubuntu, I think that you may find the netserver service to be already running.
If you run a ps -ef | grep netserver, you may find the process already running and you should be able to perform netperf queries against it.

Upon installing netperf on my local machine, I was able to run netperf with several flags set and get results back.

Solution 2:

If you wish to stop the netserver so you can start it with other options, service netperf stop should work, if memory serves.

And while you are running tests, do keep in mind there is more to the networked performance of a system than bulk transfer, so be certain to give the *_RR tests (especially TCP_RR) some attention.