Test your Internet Speed through Command-Line in CentOS 8

The Linux system provides a very useful tool for checking the internet speed of your internet connection through a python-based CLI tool known as ‘Speedtest-cli’. Speedtest utility is so helpful for testing real-time internet speed. Most of the users prefer to solve their problems through the command line environment on Linux distribution. Therefore, the Speedtest is a command-line tool that allows users to conveniently test the internet speed via the terminal.

We will explore in this article today, how to install the Speedtest CLI tool on CentOS 8 and using Speedtest utility how to check internet speed via terminal.

Installing and testing internet speed through Speedtest-cli utility on CentOS 8

The Speedtest-cli is a python-based utility that is written in the python language. So, to install the Speedtest-cli utility make sure that python should be installed on your system before. Check the installed python version on your CentOS 8 system by executing the below-mentioned command:

$ python --version

The installed version should display in the output. Otherwise, it will give you an error. If python is installed then, move further on to the installation of the Speedtest-cli tool. In our case, python is already installed on this system.

Install python on CentOS 8

This is a required step for the successful installation of the Speedtest-cli tool on your system. First, we will need to install python on our CentOS 8 system if it is not already installed. Type the below-mentioned command for python installation on CentOS 8:

$ sudo yum install python3-pip

Now, you can install the speedtest-cli utility on your system through two different methods.

1. Install speedtest-cli utility using the python-pip tool
2. Manually download and install Speedtest-cli.py script

Method 1: Install speedtest-cli utility using the python-pip tool

The Speedtest-cli utility can be installed directly on your CentOS 8 system through the python-pip tool by using the following command:

$ sudo pip3 install speedtest-cli

Once the installation of the speedtest-cli utility is completed, issue the following command to test your internet speed:

$ speedtest-cli

Method 2: Manually download and install Speedtest.py script

To check the internet speed through this method, you need to perform the following steps:

Step 1: Download speedtest.py script

Download the speedtest.py script file by using the ‘wget’ command:

$ wget -O speedtest-cli https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/master/speedtest.py

Step 2: Make executable

Once the above speedtest.py file is downloaded, issue the following command to make this file executable:

$ chmod +x speedtest-cli

Step 3: Internet speed test through speedtest-cli utility

Now, check the internet speed through the speedtest utility by using the following command:

$ ./speedtest-cli

By default, it shows the internet speed in bits. But, to display the internet speed in bytes, use the command which is given below:

$ ./speedtest-cli --bytes

Step 4: Generate URL to share speed test results

If you want to share your internet speed test result with someone then, type the following command:

$ ./speedtest-cli --share

The above command will generate a URL. Copy this Url and paste in the web browser the following results shows in your browser:

Similarly, to generate URL in bytes type the following command:

$ ./speedtest-cli --share --bytes

Conclusion

We have discussed two different methods through which you can install the Speedtest utility on your CentOS 8 system. In this article, we have also shown how to test the internet speed through the Speedtest-cli utility and how to generate URLs to share with others.