How to find a wireless network adapter’s speed in Linux?
Posted on In QAHow to find a wireless adapter‘s speed in Linux? ethtool does not show the speed of the wireless adapters.
For finding the configured speed of wireless adpaters in Linux, you can use the iwconfig tool.
iwconfig: configure a wireless network interface
For example, to find the speed of the wireless adapter wlp8s0:
# iwconfig wlp8s0
wlp8s0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:"Your AP"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437 GHz Access Point: 08:5B:0E:66:DF:27
Bit Rate=58.5 Mb/s Tx-Power=16 dBm
Retry short limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=65/70 Signal level=-45 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:4 Invalid misc:1084 Missed beacon:0
Here, the “Bit Rate=58.5 Mb/s” shows the speed.
Of course, you need to benchmark to find how the actually speed is. The rate here is the link’s current rate.
I believe something is mixed here. You say:
«Here, the “Bit Rate=58.5 Mb/s” shows the speed.
Of course, you need to benchmark to find how the actually speed is. The rate here is the hardware limit.»
But I believe that’s actually the current link speed. You can test this by issuing the same command a few times while the wifi link is at rest and under load. I get different results, which is why I’m saying this.
Hi Raul, thanks. Yes, it was not correct. The rate is actually the link’s current rate rather than the hardware limit.
Hi Eric,
Cool, thanks for confirming it.
And by the way, in the meanwhile I think I figured out a way to show the hardware limit, if you have NetworkManager CLI installed:
nmcli dev wifi
This will show you several columns with properties of your wifi adapter, including one titled “RATE”, which I believe is the hardware’s maximum speed. I say “I believe” because I can’t find anything in the documentation that explains what each field is but it is definitely a fixed field with a much higher value on my hardware than what I get with iwconfig or iwlist.
Hi,
“iwconfig wlan0” gives me “Bit Rate:434 Mb/s” which is the hardware limit IMHO.
“nmcli dev wifi” shows 540 Mb/s…
The ookla speedtest-cli tool shows 21.58 Mbps, that’s the real download speed.