mikkeli 6e35d724dc docs: record that the core runs without the UI, and the CPU cost of the UI
States where run data lives now that Iperf3Session owns it, so the next person
does not put accumulation back in the view model, and documents the headless
entry point as the way to check that claim rather than trust it.

Includes the measurement that motivates using it: 30.2% local CPU headless
versus 79.9% through the UI on a comparable 4-stream run. That gap is worth
recording, because it means throughput read off the app's own screen is
pessimistic at high rates and should not be compared against a headless or
desktop figure without noting which path produced it.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-26 20:25:06 +09:00

iperf3-gui

A Flutter-based Android GUI wrapper for iperf3, the popular network performance measurement tool.

Features

  • Client-mode network throughput testing
  • Configurable server, port, duration and parallel streams
  • Live iperf3 output, streamed line by line while the test runs
  • Stop a running test early
  • Copy the transcript to the clipboard
  • iperf3 3.19 compiled into the app as a native library — no external binary

Architecture

lib/
├── domain/
│   ├── models/          # TestConfiguration, Iperf3Result
├── data/
│   └── services/        # Iperf3Service (MethodChannel → JNI)
├── ui/
│   └── features/
│       └── test_run/    # TestRunScreen, TestRunViewModel
└── main.dart            # App entry point

android/app/src/main/
├── kotlin/…/IperfRunner.kt   # MethodChannel handler, runs tests off the platform thread
└── cpp/iperf_jni.c           # JNI bridge into the iperf3 API

See docs/README.md for the data flow, the native API surface and the design decisions behind them.

Why JNI instead of executing a binary

Android SELinux in Enforcing mode blocks execve() from the untrusted_app domain, so shipping an iperf3 ELF in assets and running it via Process.start() fails with "Permission denied". iperf3 is therefore compiled as a shared library (libiperf3jni.so) and called in-process over JNI.

assets/iperf3/ still holds the pre-compiled binaries from that earlier approach. They are not declared in pubspec.yaml, so they are not packaged into the APK, and nothing in the app reads them.

Building

Prerequisites:

  • Flutter 3.47+
  • Android SDK with platform android-36
  • JDK 17
  • NDK r28+ and CMake 3.22.1 (for the native build)
flutter pub get
flutter analyze
flutter test
flutter build apk --debug
adb install -r build/app/outputs/flutter-apk/app-debug.apk

Testing against a local server

iperf3 -s -p 5201                 # on a machine on the same network
ip -4 addr show                   # note its address

Enter that address in the app, then press GO.

Dependencies

  • Dart: provider
  • Native: iperf3 3.19 + cJSON, built by CMake for armeabi-v7a and arm64-v8a

License

MIT — bundled iperf3 3.19 is BSD-3-Clause licensed.

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