Errors/Discarded Packets graphs concepts

[Josival]

Hello everybody!

I have some doubts about In/Out Errors/Discarded Packets graphs and I'd appreciate some help...

Primarly, what's the difference between errors and discarded packets? I thought that everytime an error occur the packet is discarded. Anyway, what are the reasons to an error and a discard? In my scenario, for example, I noticed that the higher the traffic the higher the discarded out packets rate. Is it related to congestion, maybe?

Not less important is the in/out concept. I read discarded in as "packets discarded when incoming interface" and discarded out as "packets discarded when outgoing" from interface. Is that right? And what about errors?

Sorry my poor English, guys! Thanks in advance.

[BSOD2600]

Look in the RFC1213 mib file for the definitions:

ifInDiscards OBJECT-TYPE
SYNTAX Counter
ACCESS read-only
STATUS mandatory
DESCRIPTION
"The number of inbound packets which were chosen
to be discarded even though no errors had been
detected to prevent their being deliverable to a
higher-layer protocol. One possible reason for
discarding such a packet could be to free up
buffer space."
::= { ifEntry 13 }

ifInErrors OBJECT-TYPE
SYNTAX Counter
ACCESS read-only
STATUS mandatory
DESCRIPTION
"The number of inbound packets that contained
errors preventing them from being deliverable to a
higher-layer protocol."
::= { ifEntry 14 }

[Josival]

This is exactly what I expected! It answered all my questions
We understand these graphs better now! Thanks!!

[stegfeld]

could anybody tell me what does this "m" in the chart description mean? see attachment