My Pockethernet V2 tool is still great and in weekly use. See my Review Article. But I wanted to be able to drive it from my laptop, not only my phone.

Don’t get me wrong, the phone app is perfectly fine (beside that rotate sizing issue) and the idea of running the tests from a CLI is more a possibility than a necessity. The advantage is that you can easily copy and paste the results to store them or automate tests.

Example

Before getting more into the actual script, take this example. The example contains output of the quick run. The quick run does a row of basic tests to give you an idea of the connection.

Link test
─────────
  ✓ Link Up, 1000 Mbit, Full duplex
  Speed     1000 Mbit/s
  Duplex    Full duplex
  Partner capabilities
    10M     Half & Full Duplex
    100M    Half & Full Duplex
    1000M   Half & Full Duplex
    multig  Not advertised
  Polarity  1-2 Normal, 3-6 Normal, 4-5 Normal, 7-8 Normal
  Skew      8, 0, 0, 0 ns
  Length    30 m
→ Requesting an IPv4 address via DHCPv4...

DHCPv4
──────
  ✓ Lease acquired: 192.0.2.10
  Address      192.0.2.10
  Subnet mask  255.255.255.0
  Gateway      192.0.2.1
  DHCP server  192.0.2.2
  DNS          192.0.2.53, 192.0.2.54
  Lease        19 h 59 min
  Server MAC   AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:01
→ Starting CDP/LLDP discovery...
→ Waiting for a CDP/LLDP advertisement...

LLDP neighbor
─────────────
  ✓ LLDP: switch-1
  Source MAC            AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:02
  Chassis ID            AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:02
  Port ID               AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:02
  TTL                   120 s
  System name           switch-1
  System description    Example switch
  Capabilities          MAC Bridge, WLAN Access Point, Router, Station
  Capabilities Enabled  Station
  Management IPv4       192.0.2.20
  Management IPv6       2001:db8::1
  Port description      eth0
→ Running PoE test...
  ✗ PoE test timed out

Quick test summary
──────────────────
  ✓ Link    Link Up, 1000 Mbit, Full duplex
  ✓ DHCPv4  192.0.2.10
  ✓ LLDP    LLDP: switch-1
  ✗ PoE     timed out

Available Tests

The most used tests are included in the CLI:

  • discover: scan for Pockethernet devices
  • connect: connect and print device information
  • link: run a link test and print the result
  • ip: get the IPv4 address via DHCPv4
  • lldp: discover CDP/LLDP neighbor information
  • poe: measure PoE voltage, class, and pair polarity
  • quick: run link, DHCPv4 and LLDP tests in one pass
  • tdr: measure pair length and faults with TDR
  • wiremap: map the pairs and read the far-end ID dongle

Pockethernet V2 Protocol

I got the inspiration from another GitHub project which already discovered most of the protocol. The project I refer to is Pockethernet-Web. That’s a nice project with a similar aim, but it runs fully in the browser. Unfortunately on my Ubuntu environment I could not get it to run stable enough. So I came up with my own implementation in Python for the CLI.

You find the repo of my project on GitHub: pockethernet.py. This contains install and usage instructions.

Pockethernet CLI Linux

The script is tested on my Framework Laptop 13 using Python 3.14.4 on Ubuntu 26.04.
It contains a wrapper to call it easily from the CLI without first needing to enable the venv. I linked it to /usr/bin/pockethernet so if I want to use it I only need to ensure my Pockethernet V2 is turned on and then type the command pockethernet in my terminal.

Due to the V2 of Pockethernet using Bluetooth LE you do not need to pair or wait for repairing; it is an instant discovery and connect.