NIC CARD TEST

[Nobody's Hero]

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.

[Tim Nelson]

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.

[Nobody's Hero]

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?

[Sandman!]

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.

[Fabio Ettore · Accepted solution]

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

[Eric SAUBIGNAC]

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

[Tim Nelson]

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

[rick jones]

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.

[VK2COT]

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