Issue Gathering Ethernet Error Metrics on Ubuntu with Intel X550 NIC

[JDiaz16]

I am working on some cable benchmarking and have been having some problems gathering accurate ethernet error statistics. When running traffic generation software, I found that the OS counters (both ifconfig and /proc/net/dev) always have ethernet errors at 0 even though typically well performing ethernet have at least 1 in 1012 bit error rate (probably worse since I am using a lossy cable). I am wondering if there is some other place I can look for ethernet metrics. Why does the OS not seem to update the packet errors? Are packets with errors dropped automatically and not counted? Is there some issue with my current NIC/driver/kernel combo? Any tips on how to get more accurate measurements?

Current my setup is 2 linux Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS servers with a 10gE ethernet running between both. I am using 2 NICs and a cat6 cable going between both servers that supports 10gE. The NIC is using Intel(R) 10 Gigabit PCI Express Network Driver - version 4.2.1-k.

Thanks for any help!

[Daniel_D_Intel1]

Hello JDiaz16, Thank you for posting in Intel Ethernet Communities. You may be able to find more metrics running "ethtool -S <interface>". Updating the drivers to ixgbe 5.5.3 may also help if the in-kernel drivers are not providing the error count. Let us know if this works for you. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask. Best regards, Daniel D Intel Customer Support Under Contract to Intel Corporation

[Caguicla_Intel]

Hello JDiaz16, I hope that you were able to find more metrics using the given command. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns. Best regards, Crisselle C Intel Customer Support Under Contract to Intel Corporation

[Caguicla_Intel]

Hello JDiaz16, Please let us know if you still need further assistance with this matter. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. Best regards, Crisselle C Intel Customer Support Under Contract to Intel Corporation

[Caguicla_Intel]

Hello JDiaz16, Please provide the output for "ethtool -k <interface>", this will show the rx-fcs. This parameter is for tracking of receive frame errors. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. Best regards, Crisselle C Intel Customer Support Under Contract to Intel Corporation

[JDiaz16]

Hi Crisselle,

Below is the output:

Features for ens4f0:

rx-checksumming: on

tx-checksumming: on

tx-checksum-ipv4: on

tx-checksum-ip-generic: off [fixed]

tx-checksum-ipv6: on

tx-checksum-fcoe-crc: on [fixed]

tx-checksum-sctp: on

scatter-gather: on

tx-scatter-gather: on

tx-scatter-gather-fraglist: off [fixed]

tcp-segmentation-offload: on

tx-tcp-segmentation: on

tx-tcp-ecn-segmentation: off [fixed]

tx-tcp6-segmentation: on

udp-fragmentation-offload: off [fixed]

generic-segmentation-offload: on

generic-receive-offload: on

large-receive-offload: off

rx-vlan-offload: on

tx-vlan-offload: on

ntuple-filters: off

receive-hashing: on

highdma: on [fixed]

rx-vlan-filter: on [fixed]

vlan-challenged: off [fixed]

tx-lockless: off [fixed]

netns-local: off [fixed]

tx-gso-robust: off [fixed]

tx-fcoe-segmentation: on [fixed]

tx-gre-segmentation: off [fixed]

tx-ipip-segmentation: off [fixed]

tx-sit-segmentation: off [fixed]

tx-udp_tnl-segmentation: off [fixed]

fcoe-mtu: off [fixed]

tx-nocache-copy: off

loopback: off [fixed]

rx-fcs: off [fixed]

rx-all: off

tx-vlan-stag-hw-insert: off [fixed]

rx-vlan-stag-hw-parse: off [fixed]

rx-vlan-stag-filter: off [fixed]

l2-fwd-offload: off

busy-poll: on [fixed]

hw-tc-offload: off

It is fixed to off so I am not able to turn it on.

Thanks,

Jeremy

[Caguicla_Intel]

Hello JDiaz16, Thank you for the information. We'll check on this and get back to you soon. Hoping for your patience. Best regards, Crisselle C Intel Customer Support Under Contract to Intel Corporation

[JDiaz16]

Hi ChrisselleC_Intel,

Any updates? I tried updating the drivers to 5.5.3 but now both the rx-fcs and rx-all options are fixed to off which made the problem worse. In general I would like to know if there is any possible way to get error counts from the NIC.

Thanks,

Jeremy

[Caguicla_Intel]

Hello JDiaz16, Thank you for waiting. Please try to use the latest ethtool and do the following commands. Please let us know of the results. eth0= NIC ethtool -K eth0 rx-fcs on ethtool -K eth0 rx-all on If you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to ask. Best regards, Crisselle C Intel Customer Support Under Contract to Intel Corporation

[JDiaz16]

Hi CrisselleC_Intel,

Unfortunately, the above commands did not work since they are set to [fixed] after I updated the drivers to 5.5.3 (See above reply). Any other way to get error counts from the NIC?

Thanks,

Jeremy

[JDiaz16]

I went ahead and compiled the latest version (4.19). Still the same result as with version 4.5.

[Caguicla_Intel]

Hello JDiaz16, Thank you for the reply. May I know if you already update the ethtool to it's latest version? Please provide the output of the commands below: ethtool --version ethtool -i If you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to ask. Best regards, Crisselle C Intel Customer Support Under Contract to Intel Corporation

[JDiaz16]

Hi CrisslleC_Intel,

Currently my ethtool is in version 4.5 (which is the newest version I can get from apt).

Thanks,

Jeremy

[Caguicla_Intel]

Hello Jeremy, Thank you for the reply. There is also another thread related to capturing error frames and this is currently being investigated. We will update you as soon as possible If you have any other questions, please let me know. Best regards, Crisselle C Intel Customer Support Under Contract to Intel Corporation

[JDiaz16]

Hi CrisselleC_Intel,

Are there any updates on this?

Thanks,

Jeremy

[Caguicla_Intel]

Hello Jeremy, Thank you for waiting on our update. Please submit feature request through sourceforge portal to enable rx-all, rx-fcs for ixgbe driver. https://sourceforge.net/p/e1000/feature-requests/ If you have any other questions, please let me know. Best regards, Crisselle C Intel Customer Support Under Contract to Intel Corporation

[JDiaz16]

Hi CrisselleC_Intel,

Thanks for the update. Just to be clear, does the current NIC driver not have the ability to see ethernet errors then?

Jeremy

[Caguicla_Intel]

Hello Jeremy, Thank you for the reply. Unfortunately, your current NIC driver doesn't support the given command. As mentioned above, you may submit a request through sourceforge to enable rx-all, rx-fcs for ixgbe driver. If you have any other questions, please let me know. Best regards, Crisselle C Intel Customer Support Under Contract to Intel Corporation

[Caguicla_Intel]

Hello Jeremy, Please let us know if you were able to submit a request on sourceforge. If you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to ask.. Best regards, Crisselle C Intel Customer Support Under Contract to Intel Corporation

[Mike_Intel]

Hello Jeremy, Just want to check if you were able to log a request on sourceforge. If you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to ask.. Best regards, Michael L. Intel Customer Support Under Contract to Intel Corporation

[JDiaz16]

Hi Intel,

I have a question regarding the e1000e driver. As opposed to the previously mentioned 10gE driver, the e1000e driver does seem to allow rx-fcs and rx-all to be set to on (no '[fixed]' on ethtool). However, went I tried to enable both settings using ethtool -K rx-fcs on rx-all on only rx-all was set to 'on' but rx-fcs looks like the following:

rx-fcs: off [requested on]

What exactly does to the '[requested on]' refer to? Does the 1gE drivers support setting rx-fcs to on?

Thanks,

Jeremy