Back in 2008, VIOS version 1.5.2.1, Fix Pack 11.1 was released. A new command was introduced with this Fix Pack, called seastat.

This handy little utility can be used to view Shared Ethernet Adapter (SEA) statistics per virtual I/O client.

This is not to be confused with a certain shell script that Nigel Griffiths wrote a while back!

From the man page:

The seastat command generates a report to view, per client, shared ethernet adapter statistics.

To gather network statistics at a per-client level, advanced accounting can be enabled on the Shared Ethernet Adapter to provide more information about its network traffic.

To enable per-client statistics, the VIOS administrator can set the Shared Ethernet Adapter accounting attribute to enabled. The default value is disabled.

When advanced accounting is enabled, the Shared Ethernet Adapter keeps track of the hardware (MAC) addresses of all of the packets it receives from the LPAR clients, and increments packet and byte counts for each client independently. After advanced accounting is enabled on the Shared Ethernet Adapter, the VIOS administrator can generate a report to view per-client statistics by running the seastat command.

Before using the command, you must first enable advanced accounting on the SEA. To enable advanced accounting on the SEA, enter the following command:

$ chdev -dev ent10 -attr accounting=enabled

When advanced accounting is enabled, the SEA keeps track of the hardware (MAC) addresses of all of the packets it receives from the LPAR clients, and increments packet and byte counts for each client independently.

After advanced accounting is enabled on the SEA, the VIOS administrator can generate a report to view per-client statistics by running the seastat command.

You can confirm that accounting is enabled by checking the SEA device attributes as shown below:

$ lsdev -dev ent10 attr accounting

attribute value description user_settable

accounting enabled Enable per-client accounting of network statistics True

To display Shared Ethernet Adapter statistics for ent10, I would enter the following command:

$ seastat -d ent10

===========================================================================

Advanced Statistics for SEA

Device Name: ent10

===========================================================================

MAC: 4A:73:E0:00:A0:11

----------------------

VLAN: None

VLAN Priority: None

Hostname: hvio7

IP: 10.3.73.113

Transmit Statistics: Receive Statistics:

-------------------- -------------------

Packets: 18319573 Packets: 10909416

Bytes: 27063241270 Bytes: 915289249

===========================================================================

MAC: 4A:73:E0:00:A0:11

----------------------

VLAN: None

VLAN Priority: None

Transmit Statistics: Receive Statistics:

-------------------- -------------------

Packets: 76667 Packets: 1038372

Bytes: 4532682 Bytes: 98065990

===========================================================================

MAC: 4A:73:E0:00:B0:11

----------------------

VLAN: None

VLAN Priority: None

Transmit Statistics: Receive Statistics:

-------------------- -------------------

Packets: 76462 Packets: 1038169

Bytes: 4520904 Bytes: 98054070

===========================================================================

MAC: 4A:73:E0:00:B0:11

----------------------

VLAN: None

VLAN Priority: None

IP: 10.3.73.115

Transmit Statistics: Receive Statistics:

-------------------- -------------------

Packets: 18262275 Packets: 10813342

Bytes: 27015331139 Bytes: 908259917

===========================================================================

MAC: 4A:73:E0:00:E0:0B

----------------------

VLAN: None

VLAN Priority: None

IP: 10.3.73.123

Transmit Statistics: Receive Statistics:

-------------------- -------------------

Packets: 822646 Packets: 1407153

Bytes: 55271389 Bytes: 1951251791

===========================================================================

MAC: 4A:73:E0:00:E0:0B

----------------------

VLAN: None

VLAN Priority: None

Transmit Statistics: Receive Statistics:

-------------------- -------------------

Packets: 292 Packets: 9901

Bytes: 17130 Bytes: 875286

===========================================================================

MAC: 4A:73:E0:01:00:0B

----------------------

VLAN: None

VLAN Priority: None

IP: 10.3.73.118

Transmit Statistics: Receive Statistics:

-------------------- -------------------

Packets: 32145973 Packets: 28000976

Bytes: 31146952180 Bytes: 21631824293

===========================================================================

MAC: 4A:73:E0:01:00:0B

----------------------

VLAN: None

VLAN Priority: None

IP: 10.3.30.66

Transmit Statistics: Receive Statistics:

-------------------- -------------------

Packets: 7439 Packets: 962069

Bytes: 515632 Bytes: 93477510

===========================================================================

MAC: 4A:73:E0:01:00:0B

----------------------

VLAN: None

VLAN Priority: None

Transmit Statistics: Receive Statistics:

-------------------- -------------------

Packets: 78994 Packets: 1035678

Bytes: 4720434 Bytes: 97904350

===========================================================================

MAC: 4A:73:E0:01:10:0B

----------------------

VLAN: None

VLAN Priority: None

IP: 10.3.73.119

Transmit Statistics: Receive Statistics:

-------------------- -------------------

Packets: 24864143 Packets: 22249795

Bytes: 26229038743 Bytes: 15952109586

===========================================================================

MAC: 4A:73:E0:01:10:0B

----------------------

VLAN: None

VLAN Priority: None

Transmit Statistics: Receive Statistics:

-------------------- -------------------

Packets: 79016 Packets: 1036886

Bytes: 4690722 Bytes: 97976763

===========================================================================

MAC: 4A:73:E0:01:10:0B

----------------------

VLAN: None

VLAN Priority: None

IP: 10.3.30.67

Transmit Statistics: Receive Statistics:

-------------------- -------------------

Packets: 7318 Packets: 959949

Bytes: 504241 Bytes: 93299959

===========================================================================

MAC: 4A:73:E0:01:20:0B

----------------------

VLAN: None

VLAN Priority: None

IP: 10.3.73.120

Transmit Statistics: Receive Statistics:

-------------------- -------------------

Packets: 41236479 Packets: 51720944

Bytes: 27649217018 Bytes: 59572685172

===========================================================================

MAC: 4A:73:E0:01:20:0B

----------------------

VLAN: None

VLAN Priority: None

Transmit Statistics: Receive Statistics:

-------------------- -------------------

Packets: 77521 Packets: 1035290

Bytes: 4637346 Bytes: 97881070

===========================================================================

MAC: 4A:73:E0:01:20:0B

----------------------

VLAN: None

VLAN Priority: None

IP: 10.3.30.68

Transmit Statistics: Receive Statistics:

-------------------- -------------------

Packets: 7344 Packets: 962069

Bytes: 505885 Bytes: 93477510

===========================================================================

MAC: 4A:73:E0:01:30:0B

----------------------

VLAN: None

VLAN Priority: None

IP: 10.3.73.117

Transmit Statistics: Receive Statistics:

-------------------- -------------------

Packets: 254647796 Packets: 146507863

Bytes: 365619876921 Bytes: 29550419740

===========================================================================

MAC: 4A:73:E0:01:30:0B

----------------------

VLAN: None

VLAN Priority: None

Transmit Statistics: Receive Statistics:

-------------------- -------------------

Packets: 78876 Packets: 1036670

Bytes: 4685868 Bytes: 97963870

The seastat output provides several interesting bits of information for each VIOC communicating via a particular SEA. Such as the IP address of the client

LPAR, the MAC address, the VLAN tag and the packets transmitted/received.

This is a great way to monitor traffic/activity over a particular SEA. It can be very useful when determining if an SEA is currently being used i.e. during troubleshooting network connectivity issues between client LPARs and an external network that is bridged via a SEA.

More information can be found here:

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/powersys/v3r1m5/index.jsp?topic=/iphcg/seastat.htm