How do I check for packet loss on the ESX interface?

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August 24, 2018

Last modified: 09/03/2023, 6:12 pm

Knowledge Base Article Tutorial Performance Third Party Enhancements Remote Workstation Card

If there is packet loss on a PCoIP protocol session, but an analysis of network devices in the path show no loss and they have been properly configured (see Network session checklist for PCoIP protocol LAN and WAN deployments) then you may want to isolate the virtual desktop server and look for packet loss on the ESX interface.  

Packet loss on an ESX interface can be a result of: 

  • A server NIC that is incompatible with VMware ESX
  • Dual NIC with ESX binding to the wrong NIC interface
  • A hardware fault on the NIC

To check for packet loss on the ESX interface:

  1. Enable Secure Shell (SSH) on the host.
  2. Connect to the host using SSH.
  3. Run esxtop.
  4. Type n
  5. Search for any packets being dropped under %DRPTX and %DRPRX.
  6. You can also switch to a large vmfs volume, and then run esxtop \u2013b \u2013a > .csv. This logs all stats to the .csv file. (Note: Be careful as this can fill a drive quickly)
  7. Use perfmon to open these logs.

The following figure shows an example of the log stats.

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