What Can I Do When I Run the ifconfig Command to Check the Network Interface and Find Packet Loss on the Network Adapter
Question
On SUSE Linux, run the ifconfig command to check the network interface and find packet loss on the network adapter.
Answer
On SUSE Linux with kernel version 2.6.37 or a later version, the network adapter packet loss algorithm is changed. Packet loss data detected by the ifconfig command may be caused by:
- Full buffer for the IP protocol stack
- Incorrect VLAN tag
- Unknown protocol
- IPv6 not configured on the server and IPv6 packets are discarded
When packet loss is detected after you run the ifconfig command, check whether the packet loss is caused by full buffer for the IP protocol stack.
Procedure: Check the value in the second column in the /proc/net/softnet_stat file. If the value is 0, the packet loss is not caused by full buffer for the IP protocol stack.
The definition for the second column in the query result: the number of deleted packets when the default queue for the CPU is full
Related material link: https://www.novell.com/support/kb/doc.php?id=7007165