Reverse Engineering HKBN Speed Test for macOS
HKBN seem to no longer have a macOS app to test local broadband speeds, only Windows. They previously had an app called HKBNLocalSpeedTest.
Sure you could just use speedtest.net, but I wondered if I could reverse engineer their old app?
Alas I no longer have the app, but analysed it previously. It was basically iperf1, upnpc2 and some AppleScripts to manipulate the output from iperf then load the results into a URL for display.
upnpc was used to route a port on your public IP address to the same port on your local IP, to make your local machine accessible from the Internet.
iperf was started in client and server mode and the client pointed to iperfmac.speedtest.com.hk. Wait for a bit, parse the output and post to the URL.
The shell script I devised is shown below and linked here.
HKBN Results
Ookla Results
Pretty close…
Script listing
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# shellcheck shell=bash
# ------------------------------------
# LOGGING UTILS
# ------------------------------------
# debug logging
info() {
printf "$(tput setaf 2)%s$(tput sgr0)\\n" "$@"
}
# Error logging
error() {
printf "$(tput setaf 1)x %s$(tput sgr0)\\n" "$@"
}
if hash upnpc &>/dev/null; then
info "upnpc is installed"
else
error "upnpc is NOT installed, brew install miniupnpc, or build from source: https://miniupnp.tuxfamily.org/files/"
exit 255
fi
if hash iperf &>/dev/null; then
info "iperf is installed"
else
error "iperf is NOT installed, brew install iperf, or build from source: https://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/iperf/iperf-2.0.5.tar.gz"
exit 255
fi
iperfApp=$(command -v iperf)
upnp=$(command -v upnpc)
TMP_DIR=$(/usr/bin/mktemp -d 2> /dev/null || /usr/bin/mktemp -d -t tmp)
info "TMP_DIR = $TMP_DIR"
# cleanup temp dir on exit
trap 'rm -rf $TMP_DIR' EXIT
upnp_txt="$TMP_DIR/upnp.txt"
err_txt="$TMP_DIR/error.txt"
res_txt="$TMP_DIR/result.txt"
load_url="http://reg.hkbn.net/DosPatch_PingTest/mac/en/loading.html"
echo "iper = $iperfApp"
# shellcheck disable=SC2009
psg ()
{
ps -aef | grep --color=auto -i "[${1:0:1}]${1:1}";
return 0
}
osascript -e 'on run {load_url}' -e 'tell application "Safari" to activate' -e 'tell application "Safari" to make new document with properties{URL:load_url}' -e 'end run' $load_url
$upnp -r 6001 tcp 2> /dev/null 1> "$upnp_txt"
if [ -f /usr/bin/dscacheutil ];
then
/usr/bin/dscacheutil -flushcache;
else
lookupd -flushcache;
fi
$iperfApp -p 6001 -s -f m -w 1M 2>> "$err_txt" 1>> "$res_txt" &
PID=$!
psg iperf
echo "iperf pid = $PID"
$iperfApp -c iperfmac.speedtest.com.hk -p 6001 -t 10 -P 35 -f m 2> "$err_txt" 1> "$res_txt"
psg iperf
info "sleeping for 20"
sleep 20
kill $PID
$upnp -d 6001 tcp 2> /dev/null 1>> "$upnp_txt"
IFS=$'\n' read -d '' -r -a msgArray < "$res_txt"
errmsg=$(<"$err_txt")
if [ -n "$errmsg" ]
then
error "not ok"
osascript <<'END'
tell application "Safari"
do JavaScript "alert('Exceed maximum number of speed test, please try again later. （1004）');" in document 1
end tell
END
exit 255
else
info "all ok"
listSize=${#msgArray[@]}
info "msgs size is $listSize"
server_txt=""
dl_int=""
dl_trn=""
dl_bdw=""
declare -i dl_bdw_int
ul_int=""
ul_trn=""
ul_bdw=""
declare -i ul_bdw_int
status_flag="UL"
for index in "${!msgArray[@]}"; do
echo "$index" = "${msgArray[index]}"
if [[ "${msgArray[index]}" == *"Client connecting to"* ]]
then
echo "It's there!"
server_txt=$(echo "${msgArray[index]}" | awk '{print $4}')
fi
if [[ "${msgArray[index]}" == *"[SUM]"* ]]
then
echo "got sum It's there!"
echo "in SUM status_flag now = $status_flag"
if [ "$status_flag" == "DL" ]
then
echo "in DL status_flag = $status_flag"
dl_int=$(echo "${msgArray[index]}" | awk '{print $2}')
dl_trn=$(echo "${msgArray[index]}" | awk '{print $4}')
dl_bdw=$(echo "${msgArray[index]}" | awk '{print $6}')
fi
if [ "$status_flag" == "UL" ]
then
echo "in UL status_flag = $status_flag"
ul_int=$(echo "${msgArray[index]}" | awk '{print $2}')
ul_trn=$(echo "${msgArray[index]}" | awk '{print $4}')
ul_bdw=$(echo "${msgArray[index]}" | awk '{print $6}')
status_flag="DL"
echo "in UL status_flag now = $status_flag"
fi
fi
done
ul_bdw_int=$(("$ul_bdw" + 0));
dl_bdw_int=$(("$dl_bdw" + 0));
ul_bdw_int=$((ul_bdw_int*1024/8));
dl_bdw_int=$((dl_bdw_int*1024/8));
info "server = $server_txt"
info "DL: interval=$dl_int transfer=$dl_trn bandwidth=$dl_bdw bandwidth_int=$dl_bdw_int"
info "UL: interval=$ul_int transfer=$ul_trn bandwidth=$ul_bdw bandwidth_int=$ul_bdw_int"
fi
osascript <<'END'
tell application "Safari"
do JavaScript "window.close();" in document 1
end tell
END
res_url="http://reg.hkbn.net/DosPatch_PingTest/mac/en/mac.jsp?DOWNsize=$dl_trn&DOWNduration=$dl_int&DOWNspeed=$dl_bdw&UPsize=$ul_trn&UPduration=$ul_int&UPspeed=$ul_bdw"
osascript -e 'on run {res_url}' -e 'tell application "Safari" to activate' -e 'tell application "Safari" to make new document with properties{URL:res_url}' -e 'tell application "Safari" to set the URL of document 1 to res_url' -e 'end run' "$res_url"
One caveat is that the HKBN loading page uses Flash. Flash is disabled by default in Safari, so you have to be quick and click to run Flash. Alternatively, for the brave, you could edit the Safari plist file to allow Flash to run without a prompt:
# copy original plist somewhere safe
cp ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist ~
alias plistbuddy="/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy"
# close Safari
killall Safari
cd ~/Library/Preferences/
plistbuddy -c "SET ':ManagedPlugInLoadPolicies:com.macromedia.Flash Player.plugin:PlugInDisallowPromptBeforeUseDialog' false" com.apple.Safari.plist
plistbuddy -c "SET ':ManagedPlugInPolicies:com.macromedia.Flash Player.plugin:PlugInDisallowPromptBeforeUseDialog' false" com.apple.Safari.plist
plistbuddy -c "SET ':ManagedPlugInPolicies:com.macromedia.Flash Player.plugin:PlugInFirstVisitPolicy' PlugInPolicyAllowWithSecurityRestrictions" com.apple.Safari.plist
# These keys may not be set or Flash not installed, then this won't work.
# If the changes take, then run the script and you won't need to activate Flash real quick.
# Once done:
# close Safari
killall Safari
# copy original back
cp ~/com.apple.Safari.plist ~/Library/Preferences/
Duuuh
Thinking about it, that loading page isn’t actually doing anything, so there’s no need to open it in Safari or mess about with the plist!