Commands Reference, Volume 5

spray Command

Purpose

Sends a specified number of packets to a host and reports performance statistics.

Syntax

/usr/sbin/spray Host [ -c Count ] [ -d Delay ] [ -i ] [ -l Length ]

Description

The spray command uses the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) protocol to send a one-way stream of packets to the host you specify. This command reports how many packets were received and at what transfer rate. The Host parameter can be either a name or an Internet address. The host only responds if the sprayd daemon is running.

See the rpc.sprayd daemon documentation for factors that affect spray command performance.

Flags

-c Count	Specifies the number of packets to send. The default value is the number of packets required to make the total stream size 100,000 bytes.
-d Delay	Specifies the time, in microseconds, the system pauses between sending each packet. The default is 0.
-i	Uses the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) echo packets rather than the RPC protocol. Since ICMP echoes automatically, it creates a two-way stream. You must be root user to use this option.
-l Length	Specifies the number of bytes in the packet that holds the RPC call message. The default value of the Length parameter is 86 bytes, the size of the RPC and UDP headers. The data in the packet is encoded using eXternal Data Representation (XDR). Since XDR deals only with 32-bit quantities, the spray command rounds smaller values up to the nearest possible value. When the Length parameter is greater than 1500 for Ethernet or 1568 for token-ring, the RPC call can no longer fit into one Ethernet packet. Therefore, the Length field no longer has a simple correspondence to Ethernet packet size.

Examples

When sending a spray command to a workstation, specify the number of packets to send and the length of time the system will wait between sending each packet as follows:
/usr/sbin/spray zorro -c 1200 -d 2
In this example, the spray command sends 1200 packets at intervals of 2 microseconds to the workstation named zorro.
To change the number of bytes in the packets you send, enter:
/usr/sbin/spray zorro -l 1350
In this example, the spray command sends 1350-byte packets to the workstation named zorro.
To send echo packets using the ICMP protocol instead of the RPC protocol, enter:
/usr/sbin/spray zorro -i
In this example, the spray command sends echo packets to the workstation named zorro.

Related Information

The sprayd daemon.

List of NFS Commands.

Network File System (NFS) Overview for System Management in AIX 5L Version 5.2 System Management Guide: Communications and Networks.

NFS Problem Determination in AIX 5L Version 5.2 System Management Guide: Communications and Networks.