Exploring Nping Performance Issues on a Windows Computer

When using any tool, it is critical to understand how it works.

This is especially important when using Microsoft-based tools. These tools may have their own drivers, which in turn need to work with Microsoft NDIS drivers, operating system, and of course, the application. Every one of these components will have its limitations, which will affect the performance or results that tool reports.

A great example is the Microsoft ping command. This widely used utility will send a ping packet every second. That rate is not adjustable. If you need to ping something more frequently than once a second, look into hrPing. If you run hrPing and ping side-by-side, you will see a difference in the results reported because they are different applications with different default options.

The concern I have is that most people will download a utility and blindly believe whatever it reports without spending a few minutes trying to understand how it works.

In this article, I cover Nping, a utility that I am seeing more and more in the field. Nping is part of the Nmap set of tools, which is available in Linux, Mac OS, and Windows.

The purpose of the article is to demonstrate that on my Windows system, with the options used, Nping seemed to max out at over 7,000 packets per second. You can expect to generate less throughput when using smaller payloads. The good news is that knowing this, you can generate varying levels of throughput. However, you need to test your system. 

In my example, I used my Optiview to measure my results. A good alternative is to use a managed switch and monitor the port statistics as you generate traffic. I know my Optiview could easily handle 100mbps (and I have one), which is why I chose it.

Testing or calibrating your software tools is critical when understanding how they behave and a great application baselining practice.

As I mention in the video, let me know if you find this topic helpful, and I will post more examples.