Network Integration Guide › Troubleshooting › Some Files and Emails are Not Captured › Is the Volume of Network Traffic Too High?

Is the Volume of Network Traffic Too High?

If the NBA is connected at the wrong point in a network, it may ‘see’ more than just traffic destined for the Internet. Consequently, if individual packets from an email or file stream are missed, this will cause the entire stream capture to fail.

Note that you can filter this traffic by exempting specific IP addresses or port numbers, though this may not reduce traffic volumes sufficiently to solve the problem.

If the NBA is seeing too much traffic, the evidence will be in the form of dropped packets.

To check for dropped packets (Linux Server platforms with Napatech card only)

1. Start a command shell either locally on the server or remotely over SSH.
2. Enter the following commands:

   cd /opt/napatech3/bin
   ./monitoring
   

3. Verify that this counter shows zero:

   Drop events     : 0x0000000000000000
   

To check for dropped packets (Bivio platforms only)

1. Generate a diagnostics file.
2. From the resulting .gz file, extract cpu-info.txt.
3. Open cpu-info.txt and check the drop counts for each CPU.
   • On Bivio 2000 appliances, check the 'FGPA Drop' count.
   • On Bivio 7000 appliances, check the 'QFull Drop' count.

   A non-zero figure confirms that the NBA is dropping packets.

The following screenshot shows an extract from cpu-info.txt on a Bivio 2000 appliance. The drop count shows that the NBA is indeed dropping packets:

Example cpu-info.txt on Bivio 2000 appliance

1 FPGA drop count.