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macOS Monterey's new network quality tool is surprisingly good

danpetrov.xyz

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Re: macOS Monterey's new network quality tool is surprisingly good

#61

Post by ketzo »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #60
epistasis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a great method for reducing user interface complexity, by taking rarely useful things out of the main flow. Option-click is pretty much the only trick used for menus, and it's fairly universal across the nearly 80 years of Mac. The incidence of people that would be helped by those graphs, and the people that option-click is pretty high, so this seems like a great combination. It's similar to option-le…

The more I think about your points, the more I understand the whys. As someone who is moderately technical and new to macos, I wish there was a global "power user" setting.

> a global "power user" setting.

You can get shockingly far just by holding the "Option" key while taking a lot of actions/looking at a lot of menus. Always the first thing I try.

Re: macOS Monterey's new network quality tool is surprisingly good

#62

Post by dorianmariefr »

m_st wrote: post #20

Slightly OT, but I'd like to express my astonishment about a positive article about a new tool making it to the front page. Somehow these days it's always rants about new stuff. Nice and short read.

Aren't you kind of ranting about rants? And am I ranting about you ranting about rants? :)

Re: macOS Monterey's new network quality tool is surprisingly good

#63

Post by mzi »

X-Istence wrote: post #41
artificialLimbs wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#!/bin/zsh ip addr | grep $localNetworkPrefix ping $localGateway ping 1.1.1.1 ping $DNS01 ping $DNS02 open -a Safari https://downdetector.com/status/%1 Do `chmod +x ./scriptname.sh` to make executable and run with argument (e.g. net.sh facebook) to check a particular service. Edit: Thanks @Shared404

ip doesn't exist on macOS. That is a Linuxism. You can use the following: netstat -rn -f inet | grep default | head -n 1 | awk '{ print $2 }' To get the default gateway that is the preferred one on macOS, so you don't need to hard code it. scutil --dns Will display the DNS servers/split DNS configuration as well.

I'm on my phone but I think you can do this if you're using awk anyway:

  netstat -rn -f inet | awk '/default/ {print $2;exit}'

Re: macOS Monterey's new network quality tool is surprisingly good

#66

Post by jedberg »

e_proxus wrote: post #9
screenshot wrote: post #5

Interestingly it uses their own CDN infrastructure by default by checking https://mensura.cdn-apple.com/api/v1/gm/config for which endpoint to use.

That's also the beauty of Fast.com, that it uses the Netflix content servers as benchmark and not some ISP edge hosted Speedtest server with special priority. That gives a more realistic expectation of how Netflix, and in this case Apple downloads, will actually perform. And it can't be artificially boosted by the ISP. That being said, I assume both Netflix and Apple have very special CDNs with ISP co-located content…

> And it can't be artificially boosted by the ISP.

Well it can... by the ISP unthrottling access to Netflix. Which is exactly what Netflix wants them to do! :)

Re: macOS Monterey's new network quality tool is surprisingly good

#67

Post by minhazm »

dylan604 wrote: post #57
acdha wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the key part is needing that understanding that it tells you how fast Netflix will perform, which is likely not the same as general internet performance. That can be useful to compare with tools like https://speed.cloudflare.com/ to see how your ISP's peering holds up but it's definitely an important nuance.

Hmmm, I hadn't visited Fast.com in some time. Just visited, and it quite clearly states "Your Internet Speed" and the title of the page visible in the tab is "Internet Speed Test". I can't imagine why people would be consfused. /s I clicked around to see if they defined it in more detail about specifically testing Netflix CDN vs general internet activity, but I found not such information. However, this has always bee…

This is true of most internet speed tests though. Even speedtest.net uses their own servers. If you're measuring for speed you just need to be sure that the server has higher bandwidth available than your ISP.

If you're looking for a generic internet connectivity test then you'll need to test a few dozen sites at least, with diversity in which CDN's they're using and so on.

Re: macOS Monterey's new network quality tool is surprisingly good

#68

Post by Zarel »

ilikepi wrote: post #18
blakesterz wrote: post #2

This is a neat little tool. I had no idea that was hiding in there. Anyone have any other little hidden gems on MacOS?

macOS has had a "hidden" WiFi diagnostic tool for years. It produces real-time-ish graphs of (IIRC) three different signal strength metrics, and it also dumps the data to a file on the desktop as it's doing so. By holding down the "Option" key and clicking the WiFi icon in the menu bar, the dropdown menu will display additional information about the wireless interface, and it will also include an entry that reads "Wi…

I've poked around with Wireless Diagnostics in the past and I've never seen any graphs or signal strength metrics. It's only ever created a diagnostics data file (which takes many minutes and can't be cancelled once it's started) and done nothing else.

The diagnostics data file is annoying to read, too...

Re: macOS Monterey's new network quality tool is surprisingly good

#69

Post by dzhiurgis »

ripperdoc wrote: post #29

Nice! A network tool I've always wanted is one that automates the investigation you have to do manually if you are experienceing "internet issues". I mean, the check list is quite straightforward but still a pretty manual process, stuff like: - Do I have the expected IP? - Is there large packet loss or latency issues hinting at connectivity issues? - Can I ping the local gateway? - Can I ping to outside network? - Is…

I have xBar plugin (formely BitBar) that pings Cloudflare:

   ping -c 1 -n 1.1  2>/dev/null | awk -F '/' 'END {printf "%.2f ms\n", $5}'
Also your router

   GATEWAY=$(netstat -nr | grep '^default' | grep en0 | grep -o '[0-9]\{1,3\}\.[0-9]\{1,3\}\.[0-9]\{1,3\}\.[0-9]\{1,3\}')
   ping -c 1 -n -q $GATEWAY 2>/dev/null | awk -F '/' 'END {printf "%.2f ms\n", $5}'

Re: macOS Monterey's new network quality tool is surprisingly good

#70

Post by lelandbatey »

Interestingly, I'm having serious problems just loading the web page; visiting the page gets me into a redirect loop, visible in cURL like so:

    $ curl -v --http1.1 https://danpetrov.xyz/macos/2021/11/14/analysing-network-quality-macos.html
    > GET /macos/2021/11/14/analysing-network-quality-macos.html HTTP/1.1
    > Host: danpetrov.xyz
    > User-Agent: curl/7.68.0
    > Accept: */*
It's returning a 'location' that's the same as the source, leading to me never seeing the actual page.

EDIT: It's back now, working and visible.

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