texas2step

Throughput, latency, jitter and packet loss between endpoints, measured from a web browser. Open the page and press Start. texas2step measures the path between you and the server with multi-stream HTTP transfers, latency probes idle and under load, and real UDP packet loss over WebRTC, then shows every figure as discrete metrics and graphs. The same measurements are available as a REST API, a Python CLI, and server-to-server functions.

Download in progress

Inspired by speed.cloudflare.com (cloudflare/speedtest), but self-hosted: a Python server, a dependency-free TypeScript client, and no third-party services, so it works on air-gapped and internal networks.

What it measures#

Metric	How	Transport
Latency	20 keep-alive pings, timed with Resource Timing, server time removed	HTTP
Jitter	Mean absolute difference between consecutive RTTs	HTTP
Download / upload	N parallel streams for T seconds, 100 ms timeline, ramp-up excluded	HTTP
Latency under load	Probes every 250 ms on a separate connection during each transfer, graded A+ to F	WebSocket
Packet loss	Numbered probes on an unreliable data channel, echoed; up- and downstream loss separated	UDP (WebRTC)
Stream fairness	Per-stream rates and Jain's index	HTTP
Readiness	Grades for streaming, video calls, reaction time/VDI/SSH and bulk transfers	derived

Details and definitions: docs/methodology.md.

Results

The UI has five views: Test (gauge, live link animation, charts, exportable and shareable results), Monitor (continuous UDP probing with a scrolling RTT and loss trace, to one server or to two at once for a side-by-side comparison), Diag (HTTPS, WebSocket and UDP over IPv4 and IPv6, tried once a second, with your addresses, NAT, TLS and an event log), History (saved runs and trend), and API (copy-ready examples). A site can hide any of them (page_test, page_monitor, page_diag, page_history, page_api). Every chart has a hover readout and a table equivalent.

Visitors pick a theme from the header: Light, Dark, America, Energy, Federal, Military or Texas, or one that follows the OS. A page-size drop-down beside it (70% to 125%) fits more on smaller screens. Operators can rename the site, add their logo, organization and support links, show a notice on every page and set the default theme; see Branding and themes.

Install#

On an Ubuntu 26.04 LTS server that already runs nginx, install the Debian package from the releases page and add one line to your site's server { } block:

sudo apt install ./texas2step-*-amd64.deb        # the package from the releases page
#   in /etc/nginx/sites-available/<your site>:  include snippets/texas2step.conf;
sudo nginx -t && sudo systemctl reload nginx     # → https://www.example.net/texas2step/

Or let texas2step-setup, which ships next to the .deb, check the server first. It reports what it will change and what you must fix, then writes an install script for that server. The script installs, reinstalls or upgrades texas2step, merges your settings into the new template, publishes it through nginx and opens the UDP range:

sudo ./texas2step-setup --id houston --name "houston.example.net" --location "Houston, TX"
sudo ./texas2step-install.sh                     # after reading it

The install guide covers the rest: the setup tool's options, the optional /speedtest address, configuration, the firewall rule for the UDP test, upgrades and removal.

To run it from source instead:

uv sync && uv run texas2step serve      # http://localhost:8080

Building, testing, the docs site and packaging are covered in docs/development.md.

Command line#

The CLI runs the same engine from any host toward a texas2step server. The package installs it as /usr/bin/texas2step; elsewhere, uv tool install git+https://github.com/robert-patrick-texas/texas2step installs it.

texas2step run https://www.example.net/texas2step              # full test, human-readable
texas2step run https://www.example.net/texas2step --json --save
texas2step latency  https://www.example.net/texas2step --count 50
texas2step download https://www.example.net/texas2step --streams 8 --seconds 15
texas2step upload   https://www.example.net/texas2step
texas2step loss     https://www.example.net/texas2step --packets 1000 --interval 5

client 127.0.0.1 (IPv4, HTTP/1.1)

  Latency            1.26 ms   jitter 0.09 ms   (min 1.17 · p90 1.53 · 20 samples)
  Download      6,240.5 Mbps   peak 6,543.6   (2 streams · loaded -0.5 ms)
  Upload       13,624.1 Mbps   peak 14,188.3   (2 streams · loaded -0.1 ms)
  Loss                0.00 %   (0/200 lost · ↑ 0.00 % ↓ 0.00 % · UDP RTT 0.92 ms · jitter 0.10 ms)
  Bufferbloat             A+

API#

Every primitive is a plain HTTP endpoint (/api/v1/ping, /down, /up, /ws, /rtc/offer), and a server can measure toward another server on request:

curl -o /dev/null 'https://www.example.net/texas2step/api/v1/down?bytes=1000000000'
curl -s -X POST https://dallas.example.net/texas2step/api/v1/measure/full \
     -H 'content-type: application/json' -d '{"target": "https://houston.example.net/texas2step"}'

Full reference: docs/api.md, or /api/docs on a running server.

Several locations#

List other texas2step servers in the config and they appear in the header's server picker. The browser tests the chosen server directly (cross-origin), and each server can measure the others through the API. See docs/configuration.md.

Documentation#

Install: the Ubuntu package, nginx, firewall, upgrades.
Configuration: every setting.
Methodology: what is measured, and how.
API: endpoints and the UDP probe protocol.
Development: running from source, tests, docs site, packaging, releases.

The same pages are published at robert-patrick-texas.github.io/texas2step.