packet_receive_errors vs packet drops

hwahdan

Hello, I just joined The Linux Foundation and have a question regarding the output of netstat -su. Specifically, does a packet_receive_error indicate a dropped packet? I see no packets dropped at the interface via ifconfig and the application shows 0 packet drops.

Additionally, is there a tool that would show the packet/data with the errors?

If I have reached the incorrect list then I would appreciate someone pointing me in the right direction.

Thank you

mulyadi.santosa

hi @hwahdan

AFAIK, packet error means it is received well in the NIC, but the CRC calculation it is somewhat altered (not the same with the data sent by sender)

while packet dropped means it is dropped i.e during receiving, for example, it already arrived in the NIC buffer, ready to be fetched by kernel network stack, but since incoming data rate is way more rapid than the kernel could read, then one or more packet need to be dropped to make room in NIC buffer

hope it helps