vsish for networking

vsish, or the vmkernel system information shell, provides behind the curtain information on the running vmkernel, similar to the way /proc provides information on a running linux kernel.  For more information, see What is VMware vsish? from William Lam over at VirtuallyGhetto.

First a word of caution, vsish is not supported unless directed to use it by VMware Support.  Do not make uneducated changes to the vmkernel or you can significantly reduce performance, or cause a purple screen.

I am going to focus specifically on network nodes that can be helpful for retrieving information.

• /vmkModules/cdp CDP information for vmnics
• /net/pNics/vnmicX/stats Vmnic statistics
• /net/pNics/vmnicX/properties Driver/firmware information, other properties
• /net/tcpip/v4/neighbors/ Arp cache information
• /net/portsets/vSwitchX/ports/#####/X will be the vSwitch number ##### is the port number from esxtop
• status information on the port, including what device it is connected to 
• stats standard switch counters
• clientStats counters from the vnic perspective
• teamuplink what uplink this port is bound to
• vmxnet3/rxSummary  additional counters for the vmxnet3
• vmxnet3/txSummary additional counters for the vmxnet3
• /net/portsets/DvsPortset-#/ports/######/ Same as above, for the vDS
• /system/heaps/NetPktHeap/###### Current NetPktHeap status, below 30% free of max size and problems may occur, check high and low, but low is more important. (this is usually only a problem in 4.0 with more than two 10GB Nics)