ixgbe Counters

The ixgbe driver provides a long list of counters for interface debug and monitoring through the ethtool -S <ethX> command. It can be helpful to watch the output while a workload is running and/or compare the counter values before and after a workload run.

1. To get a full dump of ixgbe counters: ethtool -S <ethX>
2. To watch just non-zero counters: watch -d "ethtool -S <ethX> | egrep -v ': 0' | column"
3. To check for dropped Rx packets: ethtool -S <ethX> | grep dropped
4. Review dropped-packet counters:
   • rx_​dropped indicates that the CPU is not servicing buffers fast enough.
   • port.rx_​dropped indicates that something in the slot, memory, or system is not fast enough.