rmbt-client 1.1.0

RMBT network measurement client — performs ping, download, and upload speed tests against an RMBT measurement server

rmbt-client (Python)

RMBT network measurement client written in Python. Performs ping, download, and upload phases against an RMBT measurement server and submits results to the control server.

Requirements

• Python 3.7+
• No third-party dependencies (stdlib only: ssl, socket, threading, urllib)

Usage

python -m rmbt_client --host https://measure.example.com

Run with a specific thread count and duration:

python -m rmbt_client --host https://measure.example.com --threads 4 --duration 10

Skip TLS verification against a local test server:

python -m rmbt_client --host https://localhost:8080 --no-tls-verify

Options

Flag	Description
-h, --host URL	Control server base URL (required)
-p, --port PORT	Override test server port
-u, --uuid UUID	Client UUID (uses/creates ~/.rmbt_client_uuid if omitted)
-t, --threads N	Force thread count for download and upload (overrides pre-test)
-d, --duration SECS	Test duration in seconds (default: from control server)
--ws	Use WebSocket (RMBTws) framing instead of plain HTTP upgrade
--http	Use plain HTTP upgrade (RMBThttp) — overrides auto-detection
--no-tls-verify	Skip TLS certificate verification (insecure)
--debug	Print control server request/response JSON
--intermediate	Print upload throughput every 40 ms per thread
--help	Print help

Performance note

Python's GIL (Global Interpreter Lock) limits true parallel execution across threads. On a 100 Gbit/s back-to-back test system the client achieves roughly 8 Gbit/s downstream and 6.3 Gbit/s upstream (with some run-to-run variation), compared to ~32 Gbit/s in both directions for the Rust client.

For typical home and office connections (up to ~1 Gbit/s) this is not a concern. On high-bandwidth links or low-powered hardware (e.g. a Raspberry Pi or a home router) the CPU may become the bottleneck before the network link is saturated, leading to results that understate the true available bandwidth.

Protocol

1. POST /RMBTControlServer/settings → register client, receive UUID
2. POST /RMBTControlServer/testRequest → receive token, server address, thread count
3. Pre-test: 2-second single-thread GETCHUNKS download to determine chunk size and thread counts
4. Ping: 1 s / 10–100 pings
5. Download: multi-threaded GETTIME, all threads start simultaneously via threading.Barrier
6. Upload: multi-threaded PUTNORESULT
7. POST /RMBTControlServer/result

Supports both RMBThttp (plain HTTP upgrade) and RMBTws (WebSocket) variants.
TLS via the stdlib ssl module; control server HTTPS via urllib.request.