You need to use the SIOCETHTOOL
ioctl() call. There's a nice introduction to ioctl/SIOCETHTOOL call on LinuxJournal, and the code below (which is not intended to be an example of good C practices!) should show you how to use it to get the speed.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <sys/ioctl.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <linux/sockios.h>
#include <linux/if.h>
#include <linux/ethtool.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main (int argc, char **argv)
{
int sock;
struct ifreq ifr;
struct ethtool_cmd edata;
int rc;
sock = socket(PF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, IPPROTO_IP);
if (sock < 0) {
perror("socket");
exit(1);
}
strncpy(ifr.ifr_name, "eth0", sizeof(ifr.ifr_name));
ifr.ifr_data = &edata;
edata.cmd = ETHTOOL_GSET;
rc = ioctl(sock, SIOCETHTOOL, &ifr);
if (rc < 0) {
perror("ioctl");
exit(1);
}
switch (edata.speed) {
case SPEED_10: printf("10Mbps\n"); break;
case SPEED_100: printf("100Mbps\n"); break;
case SPEED_1000: printf("1Gbps\n"); break;
case SPEED_2500: printf("2.5Gbps\n"); break;
case SPEED_10000: printf("10Gbps\n"); break;
default: printf("Speed returned is %d\n", edata.speed);
}
return (0);
}