Get interface statistics using netstat command

In previous article, we understood the column wise information about netstat output. In this article, we will understand the different examples and uses of this command.

How to get interface statistics?

When we use –i flag with netstat command, it gives the currently configured interface statistics. If we use –a option then it gives all interface’s statistics.

[root@server1 Downloads]# netstat –I Kernel Interface table Iface       MTU Met    RX-OK RX-ERR RX-DRP RX-OVR    TX-OK TX-ERR TX-DRP TX-OVR Flg eth0       1500   0    39784      0      0      0      568      0      0      0 BMRU lo        16436   0       16      0      0      0       16      0      0      0 LRU [root@server1 Downloads]# [root@server1 Downloads]# netstat -ia Kernel Interface table Iface       MTU Met    RX-OK RX-ERR RX-DRP RX-OVR    TX-OK TX-ERR TX-DRP TX-OVR Flg eth0       1500   0    40698      0      0      0      639      0      0      0 BMRU lo        16436   0       16      0      0      0       16      0      0      0 LRU pan0       1500   0        0      0      0      0        0      0      0      0 BM sit0       1480   0        0      0      0      0        0      0      0      0 O [root@server1 Downloads]#

Columns showing information about the packet status as follow:

MTU	Maximum transmission unit
Met	Metric values for that interface
RX-OK/TX-OK	How many packets received or transmitted successfully
RX-ERR/TX-ERR	Errors in packets(not delivered successfully)
RX-DRP/TX-DRP	Number of packets dropped
RX-OVR/TX-OVR	Number of packets are lost because of overrun
Flags	Flags that have been set for interface.

There are different types of flags. We got four types of flag in above example. Below is the short information about these flags.

B	Broadcast address has been set for this interface
O	Address resolution protocol is turned off for this interface
U	Interface is up
P	Point to point connection
R	Interface is running
L	Interface is a loopback device
M	All packets received successfully

How to display different types of connections using netstat command?

TCP, UDP and RAW and unix socket connection we can see by using –t, -u, -w, and –x flags with netstat command. Detailed description about this you will get in this article.