Measuring internet bandwidth in a cron script speedtest.net

This is a simple way to keep tabs on bandwidth provided by your ISP. It's also useful as a historical record to prove exactly when service got worse.

The speedtest-cli is a python CLI for speedtest.net that has been dockerized by some kind folks.

To get a self-appending CSV just run:

/usr/bin/docker run --rm robertcsapo/speedtest --csv >> speedtest.csv

Assuming you run docker passwordless (actually a bad idea for security) you can then add this to your crontab. You may want to consider running it outside of when you need your network bandwidth the most:

0 1 * * * /usr/bin/docker run --rm robertcsapo/speedtest --csv >> /home/myuser/speedtest.csv

To do this with better security don't run docker passwordless, but allow sudo to run this specific command, where the userid 12345 is your userid that you can get by running 'id'. This will allow you to run this command as a non-root user:

myuser ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/docker run -u 12345 --rm robertcsapo/speedtest --csv

And then in your cron put:

0 1 * * * sudo /usr/bin/docker run -u 12345 --rm robertcsapo/speedtest --csv >> /home/me/speedtest.csv