Exact meaning of RX 'errors' and 'frame' in ifconfig output?
90,697
Solution 1
RX errors mean that your NIC is receiving malformed frames from the transmitting switchport.
Frame errors mean CRC failures on receipt of a frame. The root cause of this could be a bad cable, or a bad interface on either the machine or the switch. Try replacing the cable, then moving to another port on the switch.
Solution 2
In the tigon (tg3) driver, prior to version v3.134b rxbds_empty
events were logged as frame errors.
You can check this via:
ethtool -S {device}
e.g.:
[root@srv2-mgmt ~]# ethtool -S em1
NIC statistics:
rx_octets: 795609182
rx_fragments: 0
rx_ucast_packets: 4003807
rx_mcast_packets: 313481
rx_bcast_packets: 1906658
rx_fcs_errors: 0
rx_align_errors: 0
rx_xon_pause_rcvd: 0
rx_xoff_pause_rcvd: 0
rx_mac_ctrl_rcvd: 0
rx_xoff_entered: 0
rx_frame_too_long_errors: 0
rx_jabbers: 0
rx_undersize_packets: 0
rx_in_length_errors: 0
rx_out_length_errors: 0
rx_64_or_less_octet_packets: 0
rx_65_to_127_octet_packets: 0
rx_128_to_255_octet_packets: 0
rx_256_to_511_octet_packets: 0
rx_512_to_1023_octet_packets: 0
rx_1024_to_1522_octet_packets: 0
rx_1523_to_2047_octet_packets: 0
rx_2048_to_4095_octet_packets: 0
rx_4096_to_8191_octet_packets: 0
rx_8192_to_9022_octet_packets: 0
tx_octets: 1010597527
tx_collisions: 0
tx_xon_sent: 0
tx_xoff_sent: 0
tx_flow_control: 0
tx_mac_errors: 0
tx_single_collisions: 0
tx_mult_collisions: 0
tx_deferred: 0
tx_excessive_collisions: 0
tx_late_collisions: 0
tx_collide_2times: 0
tx_collide_3times: 0
tx_collide_4times: 0
tx_collide_5times: 0
tx_collide_6times: 0
tx_collide_7times: 0
tx_collide_8times: 0
tx_collide_9times: 0
tx_collide_10times: 0
tx_collide_11times: 0
tx_collide_12times: 0
tx_collide_13times: 0
tx_collide_14times: 0
tx_collide_15times: 0
tx_ucast_packets: 4116171
tx_mcast_packets: 145500
tx_bcast_packets: 1983
tx_carrier_sense_errors: 0
tx_discards: 0
tx_errors: 0
dma_writeq_full: 0
dma_write_prioq_full: 0
rxbds_empty: 0
rx_discards: 0
rx_errors: 0
rx_threshold_hit: 0
dma_readq_full: 0
dma_read_prioq_full: 0
tx_comp_queue_full: 0
ring_set_send_prod_index: 0
ring_status_update: 0
nic_irqs: 0
nic_avoided_irqs: 0
nic_tx_threshold_hit: 0
mbuf_lwm_thresh_hit: 0
Author by
Andre Holzner
Updated on September 17, 2022Comments
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Andre Holzner almost 2 years
I'm seeing network problems with a (RHEL) node (packets dropped), which also seem to manifest themselves by a non-zero count of the 'error' and 'frame' fields in ifconfig output:
eth2 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx ... RX packets:277593775 errors:1049 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:536
Is there a detailed description somewhere what the exact meaning of 'errors' and 'frame' is ?
EDIT: output of
ethtool eth2
:Settings for eth2: Supported ports: [ TP ] Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full 100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full 1000baseT/Full Supports auto-negotiation: Yes Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full 100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full 1000baseT/Full Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes Speed: 1000Mb/s Duplex: Full Port: Twisted Pair PHYAD: 0 Transceiver: internal Auto-negotiation: on Supports Wake-on: umbg Wake-on: d Current message level: 0x00000007 (7) Link detected: yes
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Daniele Santi almost 14 yearsCould be a duplex mismatch. Can you post the output of ethtool eth2 ?
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Andre Holzner almost 13 yearsthanks for the answer. I would think that a malformed frame does not have a correct CRC either. What does it need to be malformed ? If there is no/badly sized preamble after the interframe gap or no frame delimiter after the preamble ? or the next interframe gap comes too early/late with respect to the length found in the ethertype/length field ?
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Murali Suriar almost 13 yearsAny of the above. I'm not sure why I put in 'malformed or otherwise incorrect'. You're right, they mean exactly the same thing. Answer updated.
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B.Mr.W. about 10 years@MuraliSuriar I am using 10G NIC and the number of dropped and frames are the same, but number of errors are 0, ` RX packets:17051276 errors:0 dropped:476 overruns:0 frame:476`, can you tell me what could be the possible reason in this case?