Speed test with PowerShell
Often times I need to run a speed test on a remote machine. Doing a speed test tends to help you understand what’s going on with the end user’s computer. For example, currently, my ISP is having issues. I am getting around 6mbps down and 75 Mbps up. If I called in and said I couldn’t watch training videos… that’s why. so it’s essential to know the speeds. That’s why we want to do a speed test with Powershell.
The Script
#Tests if C:Temp Exists, If it doesn't, makes it.
$CTemp = "c:\Temp"
if (!(Test-Path $CTemp)) { New-Item -Path "c:\" -Name Temp -ItemType Directory }
if (!(Test-Path "$CTemp\SpeedTest")) { New-Item -Path "c:\" -Name Temp -ItemType Directory }
#Download the Speed Test Tool.
$URL = "https://install.speedtest.net/app/cli/ookla-speedtest-1.0.0-win64.zip"
$DownloadPath = "$CTemp\SpeedTest.Zip"
if (!(Test-Path $DownloadPath)) { Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $URL -OutFile $DownloadPath }
#Expand the Zip File
Expand-Archive $DownloadPath -DestinationPath "$CTemp\Speedtest" -Force
$test = & "C:\temp\Speedtest\speedtest.exe" --accept-license
$DownloadSpeed = [regex]::match(($test | where-object { $_ -like "*Download:*" }).trim(), '[0-9]+\.?[0-9]*').value
$uploadSpeed = [regex]::match(($test | where-object { $_ -like "*Upload:*" }).trim(), '[0-9]+\.?[0-9]*').value
$ISP = ($test | where-object { $_ -like "*ISP:*" }).trim().split(":")[1].trim()
$server = ($test | where-object { $_ -like "*Server:*" }).trim().split(":")[1].trim()
$SpeedTestURL = ($test | where-object { $_ -like "*Result URL:*" }).trim().split(" ")[2].trim()
[PSCustomObject]@{
Server = $server
ISP = $ISP
Download = $DownloadSpeed
Upload = $uploadSpeed
ResultsURL = $SpeedTestURL
}
The Breakdown of the Speed test with PowerShell
As we enter this script, you can see my laziness already. The first thing I do is make a string called ctemp for the “c:\temp”. This way I don’t have to type “c:\temp” repeatedly. Next, we test the path to see if c:\temp exists. If it doesn’t, we make it. We do this with the new-item command with the name as temp and the item type as a directory. We do the same thing with c:\temp\speedtest for later. If you really want to get fancy, you can replace the C: with an $env:systemdrive.
Building the folders
$CTemp = "c:\Temp"
if (!(Test-Path $CTemp)) { New-Item -Path "c:\" -Name Temp -ItemType Directory }
if (!(Test-Path "$CTemp\SpeedTest")) { New-Item -Path "c:\" -Name Temp -ItemType Directory }
The next step is to download the speed test application from ookla. We need the URL and where it’s going to be downloaded. That’s why the URL has the URL needed. We want to call the file speedtest.zip. Next, we test to see if we already downloaded it. If we didn’t, we download the file using the invoke web request and the out file tags.
Downloading the app
$URL = "https://install.speedtest.net/app/cli/ookla-speedtest-1.0.0-win64.zip"
$DownloadPath = "$CTemp\SpeedTest.Zip"
if (!(Test-Path $DownloadPath)) { Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $URL -OutFile $DownloadPath }
Once we have the file downloaded, we need to extract the Speed test files. We use the expand archive command to force the download to the c:\temp\speedtest folder that we made at the beginning. I use the force flag here to overwrite anything just in case the file was already there.
Expanding the drive
#Expand the Zip File
Expand-Archive $DownloadPath -DestinationPath "$CTemp\Speedtest" -Force
Next, we run the Speed test with PowerShell. In PowerShell, you can run apps directly inside the shell and input that data directly into the shell by using the & sign. With this software, we need to accept the license if we want to do this script without human interaction. Finally, we want to push its output into a variable. Since it’s a test, let us call it a test.
Running the Speed test with PowerShell
$test = & "$CTemp\Speedtest\speedtest.exe" --accept-license
The variable $test contains a few strings with the information we need. It’s time to work with those strings. The string contains the server, isp, download, upload, and jitter information. Here is an example output of what this little program produces:
Speedtest by Ookla
Server: Piedmont Redacted
ISP: Spectrum Business
Latency: 22.46 ms (0.12 ms jitter)
Download: 166.84 Mbps (data used: 217.5 MB)
Upload: 194.09 Mbps (data used: 224.6 MB)
Packet Loss: 0.0%
Result URL: redacted
The first item I want to extract is the download. The code is a little complex so lets start from the inside. We start off with our $test variable. We want to find the string line that contains “Download:” and then trim that up.
($test | where-object { $_ -like "*Download:*" }).trim()
Next, we need to wrap this inside a regex match. We are using the .net structure here using the [regex]:match. Don’t use matches, it will give you additional information. The match uses our variable and the regex to match with. The regex is the hardest part. So let’s take it apart.
The Regex
'[0-9]+\.?[0-9]*'
The first part [0-9] is searching for characters 0 – 9. However, it only looks at the first digit. The + looks for the rest until we reach a “.”. The “\” is before the “.” because “.” is a used variable in regex. If we stop here, we only get the first part of the download speed. We don’t get anything past the “.”. So we add the “?”. Once we do this it allows us to continue. At this point, we look for another [0-9]. Once again, it’s just the first character. We want everything past that so we add the “*”. Now we have the first match. This is the download speed. Once we have the regex information we ask for only the value. We do this with the upload speed as well.
$ISP = ($test | where-object { $_ -like "*ISP:*" }).trim().split(":")[1].trim()
$server = ($test | where-object { $_ -like "*Server:*" }).trim().split(":")[1].trim()
$SpeedTestURL = ($test | where-object { $_ -like "*Result URL:*" }).trim().split(" ")[2].trim()
Now, we need to work with The ISP. We search for the “ISP:” inside our test variable. Like before, we trim up the string. This removes the spaces at the start and end. Then we split this string with the “:”. The split is here because it makes sense. We select the second object from that split as it contains the text. The first, which is also 0, doesn’t contain the text. Now we have the string, we once again trim it up. There you go. That’s the ISP. We do the same thing with the server as the ISP. The results URL is a little different. We split the space and then select the third object.
Displaying the information
Finally, we create a PS custom object and place each piece of useful information into it. When you launch the script, this information will return and you can see it inside your rmm feedback. From here, you can add this information to your RMM tool in custom fields if you wish. Since I use Ninja at the moment, I will go over that later.
That’s it, Speed Test with PowerShell is at your fingertips. I hope you enjoy it.