Exact meaning of RX 'errors' and 'frame' in ifconfig output?

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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
linux
networking
ifconfig
asked on Server Fault Sep 28, 2010 by Andre Holzner • edited Sep 28, 2010 by Andre Holzner

2 Answers

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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.

answered on Server Fault Sep 9, 2011 by Murali Suriar • edited Sep 10, 2011 by Murali Suriar
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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
answered on Server Fault Jul 1, 2015 by Joshua Schmidlkofer • edited Jul 1, 2015 by sebix

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