Using ifconfig to get network statistics

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445 points

Using ifconfig to get network statistics

Hopefully this is an easy one. I wish to use ifconfig to see the total number of packet errors. Normally on any *nix distro, I can type in just ifconfig or sometimes ifconfig -a and it will list this information. When I try to do this on a Mac, it gives me the MAC address, link state, connection speed, but no packet information. I can get this through the GUI Network Utility, but I like to check up on computers while users are using them, so I need to be able to SSH in and get this info through command line.

Thanks,

Josh

Posted on Oct 4, 2005 8:41 AM

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Answer 1

Oct 4, 2005 9:21 AM in response to Josh@uwgb

I don't know any *nix distro that displays this info with ifconfig. It's netstat you're looking for.

netstat -I <interface>

eg

netstat -I en0

man netstat will give you alot of info regarding flags you can use and what they mean.

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Answer 2

Josh@uwgb Author

Level 2

445 points

Oct 4, 2005 9:25 AM in response to Jeff Hubbach

With every distro I've used, doing a ifconfig would give output that looks like this:

eth0 Link encap 10Mbps Ethernet HWaddr 00:00:C0:90:B3:42
inet addr 172.16.1.2 Bcast 172.16.1.255 Mask 255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MTU 1500 Metric 0
RX packets 3136 errors 217 dropped 7 overrun 26
TX packets 1752 errors 25 dropped 0 overrun 0

But either way, using netstat as you mentioned does the trick. Thanks for the help!

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Answer 3

Oct 4, 2005 10:09 AM in response to Josh@uwgb

Hi Josh,

> With every distro I've used ...

The output you posted is from a Linux box and that's the only place I've seen it. While Linux is *nix, it's hardly "any distro", unless you count the fact that "distro" is Linux slang to begin with.
--
Gary
~~~~
All the passions make us commit faults; love
makes us commit the most ridiculous ones.
-- La Rochefoucauld

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Answer 4

Oct 4, 2005 10:12 AM in response to Josh@uwgb

Huh, I guess it is that way on Linux. I spend most of my time on Solaris, which doesn't have this info in an ifconfig. Neither do the BSDs have this info in ifconfig.

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