int6kstat(1)

💖 int6kstat — Qualcomm Atheros INT6x00 Link Statistics 💖

okay so bestie, welcome to int6kstat(1), straight out of the Qualcomm Atheros Open Powerline Toolkit ✨ this is your girl for peeking at what your powerline adapters are actually doing with their little lives 🦋

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

int6kstat [options] [device] [...]

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

The Atheros Device Statistics Utility polls a device and prints network and link statistics in various formats suitable for use by other programs. Fr fr, it just goes and asks your device "hey bestie how's the link" and then spills all the tea in whatever format you asked for 💅

🫶 heads up though: this is a work in progress, so usr feedback is encouraged. Yes, really — they want to hear from you.

This program is part of the Qualcomm Atheros Powerline Toolkit. See the plc man page for an overview and installation instructions. (Go read it, it's giving ✨required reading✨.)

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• -C — Clear device link statistics using VS_LNK_STATS. The stats get read and cleared, then displayed. Which stats get read and displayed depends on options -d, -p and -s, but all link statistics are cleared. Like, all of them. No crumbs left. 💀
• -d direction — Return statistics for the specified direction using VS_LNK_STATS. Direction can be 0=tx, 1=rx, 2=both, or the strings "rx", "tx" or "both". Pick your vibe ✨
• -e — Redirects stderr messages to stdout. By convention, status and error messages are printed on stderr while primary program output is printed on stdout. This option prints all output on stdout in cases where this is desired. One stream, one aesthetic, no drama 💖
• -i — Select the host Ethernet interface. All requests are sent via this host interface and only reponses received via this host interface are recognized. The default interface is eth1 because most people use eth0 as their principle network connection; however, if environment string "PLC" is defined then it takes precedence over the default interface. This option then takes precedence over either default. So it's like: option > PLC > eth1. Precedence chain, slay 👑
• -l count — Define the number of times that the command will be repeated for each device specified. Normally, you will repeat operations on one device only. (Just the one, bestie, don't make it weird 🙈)
• -m — Displays network membership information, as seen by one device, using VS_NW_INFO. Use option -t for complete network topology seen by the local host. It's giving "who's in the group chat" energy 🫶
• -p peernode — Ethernet hardware address of the peer node for VS_LNK_STATS. This option is required for all Link ID values except 0xFC. The default is 00:00:00:00:00:00. So like, if you forget it and you're not on 0xFC, that's a you problem 😭
• -q — Enter quiet mode. Progress messages are suppressed. Shhh 🤫 no yapping.
• -s linkid — The Link ID for VS_LNK_STATS. Link ID values range from 0 through 255 but not all values are accepted by the device firmware. Values may be expressed in decimal, binary prefixed with "0b" or hexadecimal prefixed by "0x". Many valid values can be expressed by name. Valid values are listed and explained under LINKID. The default Link ID is 0xFC. iykyk 💅
• -t — Display network topology using VS_SW_VER and VS_NW_INFO messages. This option is similar to option -m but provides complete network topology plus device hardware and firmware version. Topology is relative to the queried powerline device(s) given on the command line. If no device is given explicitly, then it is tried to determine all local devices (you can also use local instead). However, this can fail if you have the local powerline device(s) not directly connected but via a switch which does not broadcast the Qualcomm Atheros vendor specific Local Management Address (LMA) to all ports. PHY rates displayed by this option may saturate at 255 Mbps. So like — gorgeous when it works, absolute chaos when the switch doesn't cooperate 💀
• -v — Enter verbose mode. All Etherenet frames sent or received by the program are displayed on stdout. Every single frame, no cap 🔥
• -w seconds — Defines the number of seconds to wait before repeating command line options. This option has no effect unless option -l is also specified with a non-zero value. Dynamic duo energy, they only work together 👯
• -?, --help — Print program help summary on stdout. This option takes precedence over other options on the command line. It wins, periodt 👑
• -!, --version — Print program version information on stdout. This option takes precedence over other options on the command line. Use this option when sending screen dumps to Atheros Technical Support so that they know exactly which version of the Linux Toolkit you are using. (Receipts, bestie. Always bring receipts 🧾)

🌈 ARGUMENTS 🌈

• device — The MAC address of some powerline device. More than one address may be specified. If more than one address is specified then operations are performed on each device in turn. The default address is local. See DEVICES for information about symbolic device addresses. One at a time, in a little orderly line 🚶♀️🚶♀️🚶♀️

👑 LINKID 👑

• 0x00, CSMA-CAP0 — Display CSMA statistics for CAP0 traffic using a single peer node. The peer node MAC address must be specified using option -p.
• 0x01, CSMA-CAP1 — Display CSMA statistics for CAP1 traffic using a single peer node. The peer node MAC address must be specified using option -p.
• 0x02, CSMA-CAP2 — Display CSMA statistics for CAP2 traffic using a single peer node. The peer node MAC address must be specified using option -p.
• 0x03, CSMA-CAP3 — Display CSMA statistics for CAP3 traffic using a single peer node. The peer node MAC address must be specified using option -p.
• 0xF8, CSMA-PEER — Display CSMA statistics for all traffic using a single peer node. The peer node MAC address must be specified using option -p.
• 0xFC, CSMA-ALL — Display CSMA statistics for all traffic with all peer nodes. A peer node MAC address is not needed and will be ignored if provided. This value is the default for option -s. The easy one. The default. The main character 🌟

🦋 DEVICES 🦋

Powerline devices use Ethernet Media Access Control (MAC) addresses. A MAC address is a 48-bit value entered as 12 hexadecimal digits in upper, lower or mixed character case. Octets may be separated with colons for clarity. For example, "00b052000001", "00:b0:52:00:00:01" and "00b052:000001" are valid and equivalent. Same address, three outfits, all iconic 💅

The following MAC addresses are special and may be entered by name instead of number:

• all — Same as "broadcast".
• broadcast — A synonym for the Ethernet broadcast address, FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF. All devices, whether local, remote or foreign, recognize messages sent to this address. A remote device is any device at the far end of a powerline connection. A foreign device is any device not manufactured by Atheros. Everyone hears this one, it's giving announcement in the group chat 📢
• local — A synonym for the Qualcomm Atheros vendor specific Local Management Address (LMA), 00:B0:52:00:00:01. All local Atheros devices recognize this address but remote and foreign devices do not. A remote device is any device at the far end of a powerline connection. A foreign device is any device not manufactured by Atheros. Home turf only 🏠

📚 REFERENCES 📚

See the Qualcomm Atheros HomePlug AV Firmware Technical Reference Manual for more information. (Yes bestie, there is a whole manual. Go off 📖)

🚨 DISCLAIMER 🚨

Atheros HomePlug AV Vendor Specific Management Message Entry structure and content is proprietary to Qualcomm Atheros, Ocala FL USA. Consequently, public information may not be available. Qualcomm Atheros reserves the right to modify message structure and content in future firmware releases without any obligation to notify or compensate users of this program. Ma'am. The audacity 😭 but also, it's their stuff, so.

✨ EXAMPLES ✨

None.

(Yeah. That's the whole section. Sometimes the vibe is just… nothing. 💀)

🌸 SEE ALSO 🌸

plc(1), int6krate(1), int6krule(1), int6ktone(1) — go read the whole friend group 🫶

💜 CREDITS 💜

Charles Maier

and that's the whole page, bestie!! 🎀 this one's from open-plc-utils-0.0.3, dated November 2013 — yeah, it's a lil vintage, but vintage is just iconic with extra years on it 💅✨ go forth and poll those devices 🦋