Ping graph utility

I am having connectivity problems with my broadband and want to create some evidence for/with comcast. In particular, I'd like to run a continuing series of pings and get a graph out. All I've been able to find are utilities for Windows, or apps (like ping command itself) that just put out a bunch of one line messages. Does anyone have a recommendation?

Solution 1:

So a little while ago I was having wireless problems and wrote a little monitoring tool that was really just a wrapper around ping. I still find it useful for displaying current connectivity at a glance.

But I also added the ability for it to write a log of its connectivity, and then wrote a perl script to parse the log and display a summary graph. It sounds like just what you're looking for:

The only hitch is that I developed it on Linux, but from what I can tell, ping should work the same on a Mac. If you're interested, here is what to do:

If you have git:

$ git clone 'https://github.com/NickSto/uptest.git'

If you don't:

$ mkdir uptest && cd uptest
$ wget 'https://raw.github.com/NickSto/uptest/master/uptest.sh'
$ wget 'https://raw.github.com/NickSto/uptest/master/upanalyze.pl'

Then run the monitoring tool for a few hours, logging to a file (run ./uptest.sh -h to read its usage):

$ ./uptest.sh 15 -l uptest_log.txt

Then you can print the histogram with upanalyze.pl:

$ ./upanalyze.pl uptest_log.txt

Stars are bad (dropped pings): a full line of stars means you didn't have any connectivity that whole hour.

Solution 2:

Thank you for clarifying your question. It is not clear what you want, since you said "Connectivity problem" not speed problem. What is the PING value during the times you say it is slow ? Why dont you just show that to Comcast.

To clarify, not sure you want to monitor the Ping, but the signal strength. Maybe if you tell us about our broadband set up will help further. You said you have broadband with Comcast. That menas it runs over TV cable. Ask Comcast to measure signal strength at your site (coming in to home, and at your computer). Faulty TV cable splitters can be the cause of your problem.

Running a Constant Ping on a Mac

• Click on the "Application" icon and click on "Utilities."
• Double-click on the "Terminal" icon to open Terminal.
• Type "ping", followed by the IP address you want to reach, for example ping 192.168.100.104 and press "Enter."
• The program continuously pings the IP address. Press Ctrl-Cto interrupt the constant ping.

That will not grap it, but least you will have the data.

or try ProteMac Meter

Solution 3:

How automated to do want it? You can use any online pin utility (such as PingTest) and do a screen capture for each trial. Three or five pings should be enough to convince Comcast!

Also, Mac OS X has a ping utility built in. In Network Utility, select the Ping tab and enter in a server to test. You can select it to run indefinitely, or for a certain amount of pings.

This will give you an easy-to-read text output. Because this is already built into your computer, you don't need to download and install unnecessary software!