How to Obtain Statistics on VNICs

VNIC statistics are useful for provisioning purposes, such as determining whether a system needs additional VNICs or possibly additional interfaces. You can also use VNIC traffic statistics to determine how well network consolidation onto a virtual network is working.

Before You Begin

The task assumes that you have a working virtual network, such as the network configured in Configuring a Basic Virtual Network.

1. On the system where you create the virtual network, become superuser or assume the equivalent root role in the global zone.

   To create and assign the root role, see How to Make root User Into a Role in System Administration Guide: Security Services.

2. Observe traffic flow over network interfaces

   Before checking the flow usage on individual VNICs, you might want to view overall usage of the VNIC's underlying interface.

   where link-name is the name of a currently plumbed interface, for example internal0.

   # dladm show-link -s -i 5 internal0 LINK IPACKETS RBYTES IERRORS OPACKETS OBYTES OERRORS internal0 5315127 400738164 0 169526 29260024 0 LINK IPACKETS RBYTES IERRORS OPACKETS OBYTES OERRORS internal0 1 60 0 2 340 0 LINK IPACKETS RBYTES IERRORS OPACKETS OBYTES OERRORS internal0 17 1020 0 4 456 0 ^C

   To halt the display, press Ctrl-C.

3. Observe traffic flow over configured VNICs.

   Use the following syntax for each VNIC in the virtual network. You must run this command in the global zone for all VNICs configured on the system.

   # dladm show-link -s -i 5 vnic-link-name

   where vnic-name is the name of the VNIC whose traffic you want to observe.

   You should receive output similar to the following:

   # dladm show-link -s -i 5 vnic0 ipackets rbytes ierrors opackets obytes oerrors vnic0 537001 48104701 0 5 210 0 ipackets rbytes ierrors opackets obytes oerrors vnic0 3 270 0 0 0 0 ^C

   The output indicates that vnic0 has had both incoming packet (ipackets) and outgoing packet (opackets) traffic.

   To halt the display, press Ctrl-C.