[hobbit] bandwidth usage in bytes on Linux

[Scott Walters]

> But it might still make some sense to have the Linux hobbitclient
> collect the data from /sbin/ifconfig. It does have byte counters:
>
> eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0E:A6:CE:D6:85
>           RX bytes:2210282597 (2.0 GiB)  TX bytes:2268014990 (2.1 GiB)

> I dont think Hobbit should use these to populate the tcpOutDataBytes and
> tcpInInorderBytes fields in the netstat rrd - the ifconfig counters are
> per network interface, where the rest of the netstat data are global
> counters.

Correct, and I've never really trusted those counters for 'real bandwidth
usage'.  I think re-transmissions and other TCP counters need to be added.

> But perhaps there should be a completely separate set of RRD files, with
> one graph per network interface ?

Yes.  And for the other UNIXes you'll want to to run these local commands
and send them to the server for parsing:

AIX|HP-UX: /usr/bin/netstat -v

Solaris: /usr/bin/kstat -p -s [or]bytes64

And a 'netstat -i' provides ethernet layer stats that can be useful.  Not
for bandwidth, but Input Errors and Output Errors are never a good thing.

Henrik, do you need sample outputs to do the parsing on the server?

-- 
Scott Walters
-PacketPusher