Show interface command

[Shay2501]

I ran the show interface serialX command on my router twice today. At 830 the input and output looked like this:

61089110 packets input, 4246250336 bytes, 0 no buffer
64978203 packets output, 1980808850 bytes, 0 underruns

At 1045 I got
62307006 packets input, 709904190 bytes, 0 no buffer
66260722 packets output, 2974877871 bytes, 0 underruns

How come I had more packets but less bytes on the input statistic?

Thanks for any insight.

 

[KiscoKid]

Data flow is typically asynchronous in nature, i.e. there is usually a higher flow in one direction than the other.

For example, when you initiate a connection to a web site, you generate some tiny TCP packets between you and the server. But when you select a file to download from that website, the file is coming in one direction only (download) and therefore the number of packets and bytes will be significantly higher in this direction than in the other (upload) direction.

My guess is that the same kind of WAN usage is occuring on your equipment also.

 

[Shay2501]

Yes, but I thought that the packets and bytes displayed were the total error free traffic since the last interface reset. This would mean that both the packets and the bytes should go up, not down, over the course of a day.

So, by 10:45 I should have transmitted more bytes than I had transmitted by 8:30.

However to look at the figures above I transmitted packets of a negative size over those two time frames.

I suspect the answer is that the bytes number is a 32 bit number so when it hit 4,294,967,296 it rolled over to 0 again, but I just want some verification to that.

Thanks again for your post!

 

[voltron1011]

Yes, there is a point where the interface counter resets. I'm not exactly sure when. I'm betting Kiscokid knows.