Beinggs Transfer Utility

Overview

This command line utility, bx, transfers files or test data between two machines. It was built with .NET 7 and is a simple example of sending and receiving data at the TCP level using the following .NET 7 classes:

• TcpClient and TcpListener
• ArrayPool<T>
• Memory<T>

This utility also serves as a learning exercise for System.CommandLine.

It includes an instrumeted version of Stream.CopyToAsync(), called InstrumentedCopyToAsync(), which tracks the read time and write time of the source and destination streams respectively, using Stopwatch timers for the best possible accuracy.

Example output

Total of 7.741 GiB read in 6.174 sec @ 10.03 Gibit/s and written in 4.985 sec @ 12.42 Gibit/s into TEST.Windows.22H2.iso

Releases

The following builds can be found under Releases:

• Windows x64
• Linux x64
• OSX Arm64 (currently untested but presumed working because .NET is awesomely multi-platform!)

Syntax

Example syntax:

bx [--measured[=true]] send file {fileName} [--include-filename[=true]] to anyone [--repeat=false]
bx [--measured[=true]] send [test] to clientMachine [--size=[10] [--repeat[=false]]
bx [--measured[=true]] receive file [{fileName}] from serverMachine
bx [--measured[=true]] receive [test] [--max-size=[0]] from serverMachine

Where:

• {fileName} is the name of a file to send from or receive into
• [] indicates an optional command-line option
• [=value] indicates the default value for a command-line option

Options

This section provides an overview of options; run bx -h or bx {command} -h to see more details.

Global Options

-h, /h, -?, /?, --help: Shows global or command-specific help
-v, --verbosity: Specifies the level of detail output to the console
-m, /m, --measured: Writes performance and timing stats to the console
-p, /p, --port: Specifies the port to use for sending or receiving

Send Options

-r, /r, --repeat: Repeats file sending (by default the utility quits after sending the file or test data)
-f, /f, --include-filename: Includes the filename as a 'header' at the start of the file data (see below)
-s, /s, --size: Specifies the size of test data to send in MiB, defaulting to 10, up to 10240 (10 GB)

Receive Options

-m, /m, --max-size: Specifies the maximum size of data to recieve, in MiB
-m, /m, --max-time: Specifies the maximum time to wait for data to be received, in seconds
--version: Shows the version number

Operation

Use -h or /h to get help for specific commands, e.g.:

bx -h shows general help
bx send -h shows help for the send command, listing its sub-commands and applicable options
bx receive test -h shows help for receiving test data and applicable options etc.

Note

• The test command is implicit, so bx send to anyone will send test data.

• A send command will wait for a connection and then send the specified file or test data once a valid client has connected.

• A recipient can be a specific client machine name or IP address, or the name anyone (aliases: any or a), in which case connects are accepted from any client.

• The --include-filename option for the send file command, which is on by default, prepends the 'header' string filename:name\n, where name is the file's name, which is terminiated with a newline. The filename header uses UTF8 encoding.

• The receive file command looks for the filename header in the incoming file data and automatically creates the file (if it doesn't already exist) with that name. If the incoming file data doesn't start with the filename header the received data will be saved in the file named bx.dat in the current directory.