topic Re: NIC CARD TEST in Operating System - HP-UX

NIC CARD TEST

Nobody's Hero — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 13:40:29 GMT

I have a suspect nic card that has a high retry rate (tcpRetransBytes) from "netstat -sP tcp" comand. Could this be a sign of a port or card going bad?

Does anyone have a script or a suggestion to help test this card to see if it is healthy?
I always have problems in this area and I end up just swapping out the card, but I want to try and diagnore the nic this time.

Thanks.

Re: NIC CARD TEST

Tim Nelson — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 15:38:40 GMT

I am sure you could google around and find a load tester.

How about just a large ftp from a to b then watch the error counts ?

Replace card or use another NIC and test again, if the errors persist then you have a cabling or switch issue.

Re: NIC CARD TEST

Nobody's Hero — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 15:41:51 GMT

THanks Tim,

Where would you check for errors after the ftp test? where is the best place to veiw the error count in your opinion?

Re: NIC CARD TEST

Sandman! — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 15:47:32 GMT

Look inside the various logfiles like syslog; the circular buffer dmesg to name a few. The status of the NIC card in ioscan maybe NO_HW etc.

Re: NIC CARD TEST

Fabio Ettore — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 16:51:03 GMT

Hi,

I see the following methods to check NIC healty:

- check syslog.log for some lan failures;
- take heavy ping tests to and from this system, check for lost packets;
- issue linkloop, follows an example:
linkloop -i

where PPA number and Station Address are from lanscan command. It should be better to select PPA number from a system and Station Address from another system and test linkloop command.

Best regards,
Fabio

Re: NIC CARD TEST

Eric SAUBIGNAC — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:51:40 GMT

Bonsoir,

"Where would you check for errors after the ftp test? where is the best place to veiw the error count in your opinion?"

I think the simpliest place is output of command "lanadmin -g " where PPA is same number as "card Instance" from output of lanscan.

With lanadmin -g you will find some error counters that should be close to 0.

Hope this will help

Eric

Re: NIC CARD TEST

Tim Nelson — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:52:10 GMT

lanadmin will also provide stats. You can even clear the counters if you wish.

Re: NIC CARD TEST

rick jones — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 18:07:14 GMT

HP-UX (11.11 at least) netstat doesn't recognize the 'P' option in this context, and the output doesn't get called tcpRetransBytes - are you actually running HP-UX here or some other OS?

If some other OS, the suggestions for HP-UX things to do will be semantically (sp?) helpful, but will be off in syntax.

Re: NIC CARD TEST

VK2COT — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 01:43:54 GMT

Hello,

If you have maintenance contract with HP, you can ask for linkinfo Shell script.

linkinfo is the new data gathering tool that replaces the following utilities:

gbeinfo
10gbeinfo
100btinfo
hfinfo
apainfo

I worked with HP WTEC team on some bug fixes and the new version was published just
before the Christmas.

I would hope the script will eventually be
available to all.

Regards,

VK2COT