Throttle

• Introduction
• Install
• Start simulate a slower network connection
• Pre made profiles
• Stop simulate the slow network
• Add delay on your localhost (Linux only at the moment)
• Stop adding delay on localhost (Linux only)
• Use directly in NodeJS
• Run in Docker (on Linux)

Introduction

Throttle lets you simulate slow network connections on Linux and Mac OS X.

Throttle uses pfctl on Mac and tc on Linux (you also need ip and route for Throttle to work on Linux) to simulate different network speeds and is inspired by tylertreat/Comcast, the connectivity setting in the WPTAgent and sltc.

What is Throttle good for?

It is usually used for two different things:

• You run it as a standalone tool setting simulate different connection speeds.
• You integrate it in your (web performance) tool to simulate different connections.

You can set the download/upload speed and RTT. Upload/download is in kbit/s and RTT in ms.

Install

npm install @sitespeed.io/throttle -g

Start simulate a slower network connection

Here is an example for running with 3G connectivity. Remember: Throttle will use sudo so your user will need sudo rights.

throttle --up 330 --down 780 --rtt 200

Pre made profiles

To make it easier we have pre made profiles, check them out by throttle –help:

--profile         Premade profiles, set to one of the following
                     3g: up:768 down:1600 rtt:150
                     3gfast: up:768 down:1600 rtt:75
                     3gslow: up:400 down:400 rtt:200
                     2g: up:32 down:35 rtt:650
                     cable: up:1000 down:5000 rtt:14

You can start throttle with one of the pre-made profiles:

throttle --profile 3gslow

Stop simulate the slow network

Stopping is as easy as giving the parameter stop to throttle.

throttle --stop

Add delay on your localhost (Linux only at the moment)

This is useful if you run WebPageReplay and want to add som latency to your tests.

throttle --rtt 200 --localhost

Stop adding delay on localhost (Linux only)

throttle --stop --localhost

Use directly in NodeJS

const throttle = require('@sitespeed.io/throttle');
// Returns a promise
throttle.start({up: 360, down: 780, rtt: 200}).then(() => ...

Run in Docker (on Linux)

Make sure to run sudo modprobe ifb numifbs=1 before you start the container.

And then when you actually start your Docker container, give it the right privileges with --cap-add=NET_ADMIN

You can also use Docker networks to change connectivity when testing inside a container.